Dear. Sen. Phillip Puckett:

Stay strong, brother.

You're probably being elbowed out of the way up there in Richmond as your colleagues in the General Assembly trip over one another to take credit for reversing last session's "abusive driver" fee debacle.

You know how it is. Everybody wants to be a hero -- undoing the fiscal fiasco is the easy part.

The hard part is staying a step ahead of the pack. You're there, Senator.

You know that once the hoopla dies down after overturning the outlandish fees, Virginia will be right back where it started, without a reliable way to pay for transportation.

So you offer a prudent plan to raise Virginia's gasoline tax from 17.5 cents a gallon to 20 cents a gallon.

Ignore that shrieking sound from the anti-tax zealots. They live in La-La Land and have no grip on fiscal reality. In their mind, tax is a dirty three-letter word, and every one of them is an abomination.

Don't get me wrong. I hate paying taxes, too. But even more, I'd hate if I called the cops and they didn't show up. Taxes are just the inconvenience of living in a society with modern conveniences and services. You know, things such as colleges, schools, roads.

I had to chuckle the other day when House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith fired a salvo at Democrats in the ongoing (or is that ad nauseam?) transportation wars.

"What's their alternatives? Just raise taxes?" the Salem Republican asked.

Uh, excuse me, but that idea is better than the genius scheme to maintain and build roads on the backs of drivers such as Mary Minter, bless her heart.

The elderly Roanoke County woman ran a red light and was popped with a reckless driving charge. She got a ticket that would have been more than her monthly Social Security check. (Fortunately, the charge was dropped last week.)

Now, Senator Puckett, I don't mean to speak for you here, but please, allow me.

Virginia's gas tax hasn't been raised in a generation. Does housing cost the same as it did 22 years ago? Are we paying the same for groceries as we did in 1986? What about our utilities?

Because of advances in technology, electronics are one of the few categories of consumer goods whose prices have dropped measurably in the past two decades. But last I checked, contractors hadn't developed a way to patch potholes and build bridges at greatly reduced costs.

That's why your idea makes so much sense, Senator. It takes into account that a commodity we value greatly costs more than it did 20 years ago.

So stay encouraged. You're taking the road less traveled. In Richmond, that's the one of fiscal reality.

Shanna Flowers' column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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