It’s the same old song and dance again in Sacramento. Only this time it’s to the tune of $450 per year for every California household. Under the guise of solving California’s infrastructure problems, politicians in Sacramento passed one of the largest tax hikes in recent history.
In another hit against hard-working Californians, Sacramento just increased the gas tax by 43 percent in addition to raising the car tax. Families relying on their vehicles to make a living will now find their budget under even more strain while the state collects an additional $52 billion over 10 years.
Living by a budget is something that we all have had to learn at one point or another. Unfortunately, the state has yet to learn this valuable lesson. They continue to spend money they don’t have knowing that hard-working taxpayers will pick up the tab.
Instead of creating a new tax, lawmakers should have considered reverting back to the previous system before the “Gas Tax Swap” which the Legislature enacted in 2010. Of course that would have forced Sacramento to lose the additional revenue that they were able to devote to the general fund and their reckless spending instead of funding transportation improvement programs.
Under the “Gas Tax Swap,” the Legislature lowered the sales tax rate on gas and increased the excise tax rate. They did this to get around Proposition 22 which requires sales tax on gas to be directed to funding for state and local transportation programs and to instead be able to direct excise tax revenue to the general fund.
This ultimately led to the decrease in revenue available for transportation needs. Of course even what was designated for our roads and highways continues to be siphoned away by those in Sacramento to fund their special interest projects, once again forcing taxpayers to act as Sacramento’s personal piggy bank.
Unfortunately, the most vulnerable will likely be the biggest victims of this new gas tax hike. Struggling Californians, who will now be shelling out even more money going to and from work, are now going to face an even greater difficulty trying to make ends meet.
Starting Nov. 1, gasoline taxes will increase to 47.3 cents per gallon and vehicle owners will find themselves paying a new annual fee along with those already costly vehicle registration fees.
In an effort to get this costly tax burden passed, the familiar political dealings that the public has become accustomed to were deployed. Deals were cut to those few holdouts within both parties to ensure their votes. Hundreds of millions of dollars were promised to the regions in which those Sacramento politicians represent in exchange for their votes.
Perhaps if Gov. Brown was as concerned as he claimed to be over our crumbling roads, he should have put a little more attention into ensuring improvement projects were being completed. We continuously saw Sacramento put off the discussion of our transportation issues until it finally reached its boiling point. Perhaps if funds and focus were put more on this issue than on a certain billion dollar train that no one seems to be building and no one seems to want, we might not be in the position we are today.
Gas tax revenues have been growing over the years, despite the increase of fuel-efficient cars on the road. That revenue should have been going to fund the upkeep of our roads and highways all along — it hasn’t. Instead, Sacramento politicians have been diverting these funds to other programs and interests. Now that the state is in dire conditions, lawmakers have chosen to stick taxpayers with the bill instead of cleaning house and prevent politicians from picking at transportation revenue like it’s a buffet.
While I hope this time around politicians in our Capitol will actually follow through and put the allocated funds toward our crumbling roads, only time will tell if Sacramento can put our money where its mouth is.