Historically, ODOT has focused primarily on constructing and maintaining highways; however, more recently, with designated Federal and Lottery Funds, it has broadened its focus to include reduced use of the automobile in congested areas and increased emphasis on alternative modes of transportation. - From the Oregon Blue Book

Take a look at the budget of the Oregon State Department of Transportation: D.O.T. Budget.
Can you spell "BILLIONS?"

OPB’s Seven Days was at it again on Friday, June 1st.  The Portland bastion of far-left political thought hosted by Stephanie Fowler, a journalist of great exposure but little gravitas (media liberals just loved to say that about Bush during the campaign), took on the topic of a new "highway" funding measure, House Bill 2142,  that at this time is passing through the Oregon Legislature, heading for the Governor, who has already said he'll sign it.

Here's some text about the bill from a current editorial in the East Oregonian, which also supports the idea: Rep. Bruce Starr, R- Hillsboro, sponsored the bill, which would increase fees for new and transferred titles on vehicles from $10 to $30.  Commercial trucks owners would pay $90. This is a one-time fee. These fees have not been raised since 1991, Starr said.  The raise in title fees is a compromise to raising gas taxes, which Oregon voters overwhelmingly shot down at the polls in previous elections. The money from the fee would back $400 million in bonding for highway projects throughout the state.

And here is some text from a May 29th article in the Portland Oregonian, which, of course, also is for any idea that raises your taxes: "From day one, I came in here believing we had to deal with our
immediate transportation needs, and nobody thought we could do anything," said Rep. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, who crafted the package and is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. "It's a new day in
the state. We've got a new attitude." 

The increases would raise an estimated $71.2 million every two years. The Transportation Department would borrow $400 million for various road and bridge repairs, then use the new revenue to repay the loans. The state
Transportation Commission, members of which are appointed by the governor, would choose which projects to fund after input from local governments and the public. 

$35 million more out of the pockets of Oregon's citizens every year.  Just what the legislature needs to guarantee principal and interest on a $400 million loan.  Guess what will happen to the tripled registration fee windfall when the loan is repayed?

This bill is a fraud.  Its popularity in some rural areas is based on borderline redistributionist theology.  Its popularity with urban liberals is due to the fact that it is a way of getting around the massive rejection by voters of the last gas tax proposals. (By a 7 to 1 majority.)  It lightens the load on gas tax revenues, fattening up the chances for their non-highway plans, including the financial disaster known as urban mass transit.  (You did know that every MAX passenger pays but a fraction of his own ticket, didn't you?  You do know who pays the rest, don't you?)

Any claims of necessity for such additional funding for bridge maintenance and highway repair are pure farce when put against D.O.T. waste like using highway funds for bike paths and other forms of “alternative transportation,” fat early retirement benefits for agency employees, a questionable management overburden, twenty-dollar-an-hour repair crew stop sign holders and boondoggles like a fifty million dollar computer system that didn’t work.  But, among the liberals present on the Seven Days panel mentioned above was Hasso Hering,  the editor of the Albany Democrat-Herald.  He said that he doesn’t know where these complaints about waste come from. Reread this paragraph to find out what Mr. Hering doesn't know.

This bill, will increase the cost of changing vehicle registration -- will jack up the cost of a car, new or used, from ten to thirty dollars. Mr. Hering said that the gas tax is presently so high that the people will not stand for an increase.  The implication was clear: being a registration fee increase, this is not a tax..  It’s the Oregon Way, he said.  And, there, Oregon Magazine agrees completely with him.  Ever-increasing government raids on the income of citizens, presented in ever more surreptitious ways, is definitely the Oregon Way.  (We do, of course, wonder why Rep. Bruce Starr calls Hering's "Oregon Way" "...a new attitude."  Established, long-standing customs aren't usually referred to as new concepts.)

Call it a registration fee if you wish, but it’s a tax, Mr. Herring.  Here’s the real-life definition of a tax, which you seem to have missed – odd for the editor of an important Oregon daily newspaper.

A tax is any form of revenue taken from a private citizen for the purpose of operating government.

Being a liberal, you may wish to attempt to mislead the public by giving a tax a different name, but euphemisms no longer work all that well.  Lots of us have figured out that “choice” is just another word for killing innocent babies,  “affirmative action” is just another term for institutional racial, gender, sexual preference and ethnic favoritism, and “investment” is just a phony way to describe yet another expensive, useless government program.

A registration increase is a tax increase, Mr. Hering.  The D.O.T. is an inefficient, wasteful and arrogant agency -- a whale-sized cancer spreading out and fattening itself – doing less and less at higher and higher cost to the private citizen.

Mr. Hering and the liberal Oregon Media Princes and Princesses may call a wolf a lamb, but it is still a revenue predator.  They all may designate this bill as a "moderate" answer to highway and bridge maintenance, but it is still highway robbery -- a slap in the face to the voters of Oregon who the last time they had a chance said, "Enough!  You've got plenty of money.  Fix the damned roads!"  .

(LL)

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