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Following on the theme reported in my prior post, Tom Fahey, writing in yesterday’s New Hampshire Sunday News’ State House Dome column reports
Asked about a gas tax hike to help repair the rest of the highway system, [Transportation Commissioner] O’Leary whose term ends Nov. 30 said any increase would have to come from the Legislature..Enter Rep. Fred King (R-Colebrook), who has filed a bill to raise the tax by 6 cents a gallon. The increase would raise an estimated $50 million for maintenance of the other 4,800 miles of roads not dotted with toll booths.
O’Leary said that unless the Highway Fund sees an infusion of new revenue, his department will have to cut one in four jobs starting in 2009.
Gov. John Lynch, who said the need is urgent on the turnpikes, doesn’t want to talk about gas taxes. So Democrats who control the Legislature won’t cross Lynch by bringing in a bill..King said he checked with Bouchard first and found no one would touch the issue. "Nobody had the guts to do it, so I’m doing it," King said..He said he wants the extra money to go toward maintenance and repairs, not new projects. "If we’re going to have highways, we’ve got to have some money to spend on them," he said..Asked if he thought Lynch would sign a gas tax bill, he said, "I think the governor made this an issue when he ran against Jim Coburn and now he’s stuck with it."That’s his problem, not mine," King continued. "I didn’t take a tax pledge."
Won’t somebody please primary this RINO out of office? Are the Republicans really about to be the ones seen as introducing a gas tax increase here in NH? Can they be so stupid? Don’t they have eyes to see the types of waste as described above? Is the only option we have to raise taxes on the hapless ordinary people struggling to pay all the other obligations in their lives?
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I beg the Republican Executive Councilors to vote NO on the toll increases, along with their Democratic counterparts. How about it, Wiz? And Burton– why don’t you do something good for a change. Tell O’Leary to make the cuts and deal with them. Look at my scenario outlined in this previous posting detailing just one local NH DOT project and consider more privatization. You can’t convince me that a high degree of belt-tightening cannot be yet undertaken.
If the Republicans in the House follow Fred King in raising gasoline taxes, it will be more proof that they are in the minority because they so richly deserve to be there!
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