Someone step in something? Oh… It’s Kaine’s Transportation Proposal
Well it’s out. Kaine’s proposal:
- A 1 percent increase in the sales tax on cars. The titling tax on new and used cars is now 3 percent.
- A new $10 registration fee on the sale of new and used cars.
- A 25-cents-per-$100 increase in the grantors tax that is paid by home sellers. It is based on the sales price of the property.
- A 1-cent-on-the-dollar regional sales tax increase in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, the state’s two most congested regions. Taxes on food and over-the-counter medicines would be exempt from the increase.
- Taking $180 million from the transportation trust fund, which is used for new road construction, and using it for highway maintenance.
This is wonderfully thought out. Let’s add another tax to an already screaming in agony housing market!!!
And if paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas isn’t enough, now you will be paying more for a car. Several people that I am aware of have traded their SUV’s for smaller more economical cars to save on gas. Lot of good that will do if Kaine’s measure goes through.
And according to the Virginian-Pilot, the house tax would be used to pay mostly for mass transit, (to quote Bearing Drift’s Brian Kirwin, Buy a house = Pay for buses).
Nothing mentioned about a lock box to keep the money where it is supposed to be. Absolutely no constitutional guarantee that the money will be there when needed. The Governor’s plan leaves it wide open, for the money to be used for anything he choses to use it for. And it doesn’t have to be transportation. I could probably at least stomach most of this if there were that guarantee.
Technorati Tags: politics, Democrats, raising taxes, liberals, Tim Kaine, transportation, Hampton Roads
Another typical Democratic solution to everything. Raise taxes or impose new fees. I mean the citizens of Virginia have endless resources after all, right? If the Democrats always go their way we would all be to poor to own a car and would have to ride a bus.
Comment by
Michael Tefft — May 12, 2008 @ 09:39 am
How appropriate that this comes out so close to National Sea Monkey Day!!
Comment by
Andy Black — May 12, 2008 @ 09:42 am
There is so much bad about this “plan” it is hard to find where to begin.
But to focus on the so-called Kaine version of a “lock box” for the Transportation Trust Fund for a moment; I agree - without such a protection the new taxes, fees, and tolls will be diverted to “other things” - and thus we have a tax increase bait & switch in progress.
It takes over 5 years to go through the process to amend the state constitution. It takes 30 seconds to change the wording in a substitute bill sent back from the Governor to the General Assembly - take HB 3202 for example.
Folks, what the Governor is claiming is a “lock box” is akin to placing your wallet in the middle of a food stamp office and then claiming you will stop placing your wallet there once it get’s stolen!
Governor Kaine campaigned on a platform that included these 2 things:
1. No tax increases for transportation without a Constitutional Amendment to protect the Transportation Trust Fund.
2. No regional tranportation authorities.
He failed to live up to his word on both counts.
Comment by
Reid Greenmun — May 13, 2008 @ 08:25 am