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1. Name Withheld | January 10, 2013 at 7:35 am

   The governor’s plan to fund transportation with the sales tax really annoys me. I think we should study how much of VA sales tax comes from out of state vs. how much of our gas tax. I think you’d see that the gas tax is a reasonable way to tax out-of-state visitors (particularly long-haul trucks) for their use of our roads. Why is a reasonable, CPI-scalable gas tax okay in so many other states but not here?

   Nearly every Republican tax-reform or restructuring plan involves additional erosion of funds for public education (and services for the needy) over time. They even have a phrase for it — they call it “starving the beast.” Even the NRA plan to prevent school shootings by putting a resource officer in every school (which Gov. McDonnell endorsed) would essentially be an unfunded mandate that would wreak havoc on local school budgets. The NRA plan is just a back-handed attempt by social conservatives to starve public education even more than it is now.
2. C. Trejbal | January 10, 2013 at 8:02 am

   @1 I’m not defending the governor’s plan here because I think it has a lot of problems, but one issue you raise, Name Withheld, needs clarification. Long-haul trucks mostly run on diesel, and the governor’s proposal would maintain the gas tax on diesel fuel for that very reason. Truckers would continue to pay taxes.
3. Sandi Saunders | January 10, 2013 at 9:36 am

   I have to admit that it is pretty slick to get more money out of people and have them applaud you for it.

   Like all truly regressive taxes, the sales or consumption taxes hurt the poor, low-income working poor and the elderly the hardest, but I think we all know they don’t count.
4. BUD | January 10, 2013 at 11:06 am

   Gas tax/road funding is really quite easy.

   Start with a figure for the wholesale price of gas..say $2.40 a gallon. Every time the price drops 10 cents from that figure, the gas tax goes up a penny. If it drops to $1.90, your gas tax went up 5 cents- quite a jump and nobody would care!! Conversely, if the price of gas goes up to $3, the gas tax drops 6 cents.

   The gas tax could be reset every quarter as the price fluctuates.

   Oh look!! An incentive to keep energy prices down and the economy healthy.
   Can’t have that!!
5. Jim Lucas | January 10, 2013 at 9:56 pm

   What delicious irony & hypocricy.

   The “left” criticizing Obama for the lack of “diversity” of his cabinet appointments (nominations).

   Where is his “binder” of women, etc.?

   I disagree with all his picks so far. They are all white males. I must be a bigot.