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GOP: Fun with math

April 17, 2008 12:15 am

SUSAN STIMPSON, chairman of the Stafford County Republi- can Committee, on Tuesday launched a preemptive strike on our advocacy of a higher gasoline tax, this attack presumably coming to support the tax-averse House GOP caucus during a special transportation session Gov. Kaine will shortly convene. In her letter ("Raising the gasoline tax isn't the answer"), Mrs. Stimpson stole the words right out of House Speaker Bill Howell's mouth when she accused us of being "out of touch by calling for a 40 percent increase of the current gas tax." Oh, what a naughty use of the "%" key!

"Forty percent" sounds big, which is the effect Mrs. Stimpson intends. But it isn't very big when the numbers referenced are small. If the price of penny candy rises to two cents, for example, you must pay 100 percent more for a piece. But the "felt difference" between one cent and two is nil. To return to gasoline, Virginians pay 38 cents in taxes on each gallon they buy. We've advocated a 10-cent increase in gasoline taxes, which would raise about half the $1 billion per year in new income Virginia needs to fix and build mobility infrastructure. What we're proposing, then, is a 26 percent bump-up in the current gas tax. At the pump this translates to about $1.50 more per fill-up for the average car or small truck.

other percentages

Speaker Howell and his acolytes shouldn't talk in gas-tax percentages, because it's a tricky lingo for them. For example, the General Assembly last raised the state gas tax in 1986. A dollar from that year today buys 51 cents in goods--a 49 percent drop in purchasing power. Although Virginia is a fast-growing and relatively prosperous state, only 10 states have lower gas taxes, which means that 80 percent of the states impose higher gas prices.

Also, the average price of a gallon of gas in the USA has risen from $1.49 in January 2004, when the General Assembly and Gov. Warner first considered treating Virginia's perniciously anemic transportation budget, to $3.35 today. A 10-cent state tax increase folded into the larger market-driven increase would have constituted a "whopping" 5 percent of the total cost jump. At no political price at all, Virginia's leaders could have put the commonwealth well on its way today to rebuilding its neglected and congested transportation network.

FIASCO OF HALF-MEASURES

House Republicans oppose abortions except, alas, in the form of transportation plans. If the 2007 transportation "reform" package chiefly promoted by Mr. Howell (and weakly acquiesced to by Mr. Kaine) wasn't a partially birthed thing, what would be? Almost every component went up in smoke. Enhanced bad-driver fees? Repealed after enraged Virginians all but rolled tumbrels toward Capitol Square. Indefinite surpluses? Check your stocks. Regional-government taxing authorities? Struck down by the state Supreme Court. That leaves borrowing--as if public debt service, which eats up an increasing proportion of the VDOT budget, were somehow superior to public taxation--and some miscellaneous fee tinkering. This is about enough, as we've said before with a little hyperbole, to pave a few driveways.

Regarding Mrs. Stimpson's accusation that The Free Lance-Star is "out of touch" with the public on gas-tax increases, that may or may not be so. In any case, it's not the purpose of this page to ratify popular sentiments but to seek to change them when we think that best serves the commonweal.

Sometimes, of course, we stumble. Did we do so when we endorsed Mr. Howell and other GOP delegates before the last election? The answer to that lies partly in how the Republican House caucus acts during the special session ahead. Virginia rates good and new roads reliably and fairly funded. If Mr. Howell & Co. obstruct that--stealing our lives by stealing our time--voters should reduce their power in future General Assemblies to zero percent.