Thursday letters
Obama and health care in today’s letters to the editor.
Pick of the day: Let’s pay a little money to make Virginia better
Re: your Feb.17 note to readers, “Roads, taxes and the state’s priorities”:
It stated that Gov. Bob McDonnell is intending to sign a bill that will provide more income for the state’s transportation needs.
I agree there is insufficient money to be used for the needs of transportation. The money that is generated will have an impact on society, but what kind of impact? And how are we willing to generate this extra income?
I do not think it matters where you get the extra income, because it is going to affect the residents of Virginia, whether it is a raise in sales tax or a higher tax on gas and car registrations. What is going to matter is how policy-makers use it.
Will the government actually use the money for things that are worthwhile, such as transportation and education, or will officials use it for government regulations that interfere with productivity? Virginians should not be made to pay for frivolous spending, but they should be willing to pay a little extra to help our state become the best that it can be.
CAROLINA LAMB
TROUTVILLE
February 21, 2013 - 7:13 AM
“I do not think it matters where you get the extra income, because it is going to affect the residents of Virginia, whether it is a raise in sales tax or a higher tax on gas and car registrations. ”
It matters greatly. A higher gas tax makes it economically prudent to keep one’s car in better repair, to consider purchasing a car that gets better mileage, to live closer to where one works, and to consider alternative means of transportation. Increasing the sales tax does not do that. Very often these kinds of adjustments to personal lifestyle take a long time, but they do happen.
And therein lies the rub. It’s not about the revenue so much, as it is about controlling people. What they drive, where they live, how they travel. Adjusting personal lifestyles.
In other words, the typical liberal agenda.
I do not think the gas tax is about “controlling people” The Other Rick, so much as people paying for what they use. How is that “controlling” when ALL of the things you listed are still yours to control/decide?
@2 TOR, I’d say it’s about making good social decisions – that should be the goal at least.
I should have been more specific – I was referring to NW in post #1, where he is advocating these behaviors and speaking of “adjustments to personal lifestyle”.
What I drive, where I live, how I travel – is my business, none of his, yours or anyone else’s.
#1 Is it the manifest goal of state mandated taxes to collect necessary revenue for Constitutional purposes…..or to affect social behaviour?
Who should decide the latter?
#5 You can still live out in the woods and drive your gas-guzzling pickup truck 50 miles each way to work. You should pay not only for the gas but also for the privilege of consuming a finite resource and for the privilege of allowing your combustion exhaust to escape into the environment. That is how you work toward paying the full cost of what you consume. How much you pay will always be at least partly for you to decide … and you will render this decision in the lifestyle choices that you make.
#7 Thank you.
7 – Thanks for your permission. Still doesn’t change the fact that you advocate this tax primarily as a way of controlling or affecting behavior, instead of a revenue source. That was clear in your original post.
I don’t live in the woods…but I do live in the suburbs. And I have a gas-guzzling truck (actually diesel, which doesn’t guzzle as much)…but I also have a small car that I use for my daily commute most days. I pay the “full cost” of what I consume, and then some – like most working Americans.