Comin’ at ya: big tax hike Published: June 7, 2013 Press Enterprise -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About $130 a year. That’s how much more it would cost a typical driver to operate a vehicle in Pennsylvania under legislation accelerating through the Capitol in Harrisburg. You’ll pay even more for fuel. The bill is “arguably the largest tax increase of gas at the pump in the history of Pennsylvania,” said Rep. Matthew Baker, Republican of Tioga County. “The cost to rural drivers would be exponential and just too large of a financial burden for those that travel daily to work over long commutes.” You’ll pay a lot more per year to register a vehicle: $52 instead of $36. The cost of your driver’s license will also go up about a dollar per year. But the drivers who will be hit hardest will be those who make a mistake behind the wheel. The bill would slap a $100 surcharge on each moving violation, such as running stop signs and red lights, and quadruple to $100 the minimum fine for “failure to obey traffic control devices,” a catch-all infraction that is among the state’s least punitive because it doesn’t add points to a motorist’s driving record. All of this rolled easily through the Senate Wednesday in a 45-5 vote; both Sen. John Gordner, Republican of Berwick, and Sen. Lisa Baker, Republican of Dallas, voted in favor. The bill’s chances are less certain in the House, where Republican leaders are said to be skeptical of the $2.5 billion burden it puts on Pennsylvania drivers. Here’s the main problem: While the bill calls for a lot of new taxing, it does nothing to rein in spending. The Associated Press reported that the legislation would generate $1.9 billion a year for state and local highways and bridges. That’s why engineering firms, highway construction companies, and labor unions support the legislation. It will mean more of our money in all their pockets. But with the bill comes no companion legislation that would force the highway construction industry to work more efficiently with our money. For example, where’s the much-needed reform of prevailing-wage rules, which add about 30 percent to the cost of every public road project? At $1 million per mile, road construction is expensive. Repeal of prevailing wage would make the money from this bill go 30 percent further, in effect, paying for a thousand miles of highway. Then there’s the money that will be paid by motorists at the pump and in traffic court, then turned over to inefficient, union-dominated mass transit systems. Instead of insisting that cities and riders pay for their own mass transit, Pennsylvania takes money from drivers all over the state and hands it over to a handful of big city transit authorities. They, in turn, surrender it to their employees via sweetheart union contracts. Mass transit would get more than a half-billion dollars a year via this bill, with no corresponding requirement that it clean up its act. In short, Pennsylvania will be taking and spending more, but not insisting that the money be spent more wisely. Same old, same old. If you want our lawmakers to do better, there’s no time like now to let them know. A vote will almost certainly be taken before month’s end.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:24:24 +0000
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