Thinking Hard To Create Excuses To Hike Taxes
WHAS11 of Louisville reports on the next tax-hike push through the General Assembly.
In our recent e-newsletter, we described the lie that is the fluctuating gas tax:
The General Assembly plans to introduce the 6-year road plan Friday with provisions to raise the gas tax four cents a gallon. In theory the gas tax is indexed to the wholesale price of gasoline, so that if the price of gasoline goes up, then the tax rises a percentage as well, and if the price goes down, so does the tax. In practice, the legislature locks in every increase and the tax never goes down.
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The short article offers a number of excuses for breaking the mechanism and keeping the tax high:
Saving the Highway Plan
David Williams, KY Senate President, said, "I think we're going to have to take some step to freeze those pennies or its going to be catastrophic for the state highway plan...."
There is little question that lawmakers could never build all the roads they would like to spend money on, but there is always the expensive change order or the traffic light for the Transportation Secretary that could be avoided, or simply not using roads as a political tool.
Saving the Fund from the Consequences of Low Gas Prices
"...That's my personal opinion and it may not be a popular opinion with some folks, but the way the law is right now, it would take probably four years to recover to the level of revenue that we have right now."
What a tragedy it would be is gas prices stayed so low for the next four years that they did not hike the gas tax back up on their own! While I have great faith in President Obama's intentions to make fossil fuels as expensive as possible in this country, low gas prices are nothing to lament.
Consumers Won't Notice
Both leaders say if the gas tax was allowed to drop, consumers probably would not benefit because it is likely that gas retailers would pocket the difference.
"Nobody will care about a couple of cents." We heard this appalling nonsense during the floor debate on the last tax hike two weeks ago. As legislators dismissively hike every tax by a couple of cents, and create new taxes by a couple of cents, it doesn't take too long before Kentucky is one of the least competitive states in the country for businesses to develop.
