" Leon….many of us commend you for all that you have done attempting to bring some sense of fiscal sanity to these bottomless money pits. "

" Thanks for Leon Brauning's leadership against this tax. The one thing he does not mention is that the politicians will float a bond issue to start the down-Valley projects. The huge interest cost will kick the cost of those projects up 300%. "

" What a great letter for the 4th of July! A perfect time for taxpayers to reflect on the bumbling bureaucracy's constant need to tax, tax again, tax more. Voters should not support this tax increase if for no other reason than it was already voted down once before. What part of "no" don't they understand?

Reminds one of those telemarketers who just won't stop calling... "

" It is the Democratic way to raise taxes and fees during time of economic crisis. They are economically impaired. Noreen Evans' propoganda piece jut hit our mail boxes. She claims 70% of her district is for raising corporate taxes. I guess they are unaware of who pays those taxes.

Leon Brauning is the right man at the right time to fight these insane decisions. "

" This is getting old, but we ain't seen nuthin' yet, if Obama and his tax and spend minions sweep the Congress and take the White House. "

" Taxation with representation is worse than taxation without representation. Why? The People elect the representatives. Don't vote for them or recall them when they violate their trust. "

" Increase sales tax? No way, no how, no more, NEVER.

Grow the economy, not the tax burden. Defeat the liberals. "

" Well, nobody's gonna have any disposable income after the democraps get through with us, and the third world society has already infiltrated our society, so just be happy with what you all have allowed to happen. I have a years supply of food and guns, and am beginning to think that's not going to be enough..... "

" "Borrow and Spend" GOPers who criticize what future Democratic Party politicians might do if/when they are elected apparently have no shame. During Bush's two terms, GOPers in Washington, D.C. have supported the largest expansion of the Federal govenment since the end of World War II. At the same time, they have also sponsored legislation to increase spending on a wide variety of discretionary projects. President Bush and his supporters love to spend tax dollars. GOP pots too often shrilly point fingers at Democratic Party kettles. What amazing hypocrites! "

" The increasingly bad state of local roads is due to two factors: (1) the fact that if gasoline taxes had been indexed for inflation since the 1970's, the buying power of the resulting revenues would have been more than sufficient to keep our roads in A-1 condition. (2) When the Govenator cut the so-called "car tax" in 2003, virtually all of that money was received by cities and counties, and was mostly spent on local streets and road maintenance. We now see the results of cutting off this funding.

I agree that sales taxes are a bad way to fund roads, given the disconnect between who pays and who benefits, e.g., a large percentage of people who drive relatively little will pay more than their share of the sales tax for roads. A better solution is to get rid of the gas tax and institute a per mile charge for roads, split between the state and local government, adjusted to some degree by vehicle weight.

This is most certainly the fairest way to collect these essential revenues, since the tax would be directly related to the miles one drove. Such a measure will ultimately be needed anyway if there is a large shift to "pluggable hybrids," e.g., cars powered mainly from electricity that would consume considerably less than half the current amount of gasoline. "

" Madison Jay-


You just have to get used to it. It's the same righties who constantly write comments about ANYTHING and use it as an excuse to rip the Democratic party. Sometimes I think they have some sort of auto-response system they use. "

" Hear Ye & Madison Jay:

The knee-jerk anti-tax types that always pop up on these comment threads and elsewhere can best be characterized as "something for nothing conservatives."

Of course, in the real world, you never get "something for nothing." If you pay nothing, you get nothing.

It is clear that more funding is needed for road maintenance in this county, particularly in light of the fact that asphalt and concrete costs have gone up 70%+ since the turn of the century, a fact I neglected in my last post here.

But don't expect to get "something for nothing!" This is why I suggest some reasonable increases in "user fees" such as vehicle licenses are inevitable at some point--unless you want to see city streets and county roads gradually revert to dirt and gravel. "

" Actually, In My part of Napa, (south) Streets and sidewalks are pretty much there already...Guess I better go trim my weeds! "

" That is a very good point msetty; we need more gravel roads. It's insane to try to pave every road in the county. We can't afford the maintenance. Knoxville road is a prime example. It should be a good gravel road, easy and cheap to maintain. "

" "I agree that sales taxes are a bad way to fund roads, given the disconnect between who pays and who benefits, e.g., a large percentage of people who drive relatively little will pay more than their share of the sales tax for roads."

Everyone benefits from good roads, unless you know a way that food gets to your local supermarket shelve or the people that make to USA work get to their jobs. You don't have to litterally drive them to benefit from them. "

" 'Everyone benefits from good roads...'

Well, yes, as such I agree, more or less. But one of the reasons that Western Europeans use only 1/3 as much gasoline per capita as U.S. residents is because, for decades, they've had taxes on gasoline that are an order of magnitude higher than here.

Historically, Europe never had much oil compared to the U.S., but ironically they are in much better energy shape. European roads are also in much better shape than here, which facilitates the much higher percentage of truck traffic (and relatively short distances where freight rail isn't competitive).

When a particular activity--driving--is subsidized in a manner disconnected to that activity, the result is more of it than is either economically or environmentally optimum. This also causes excessive pollution and congestion, a much higher percentage of incomes spent on transportation compared to other Western societies, sprawl, and a whole host of other problems.

In this country, very early on, local government also began to require all development to include massive off-street parking. Something like 99% of all auto trips have "free" parking, despite the fact that these private sector expenses add $2,000+ per year per vehicle to economic costs, expenses that are rarely assessed to the act of driving itself. There are other things such as medical and death costs not covered by auto insurance, but there isn't space here to go into more detail. "

" Katrina came along and huge amounts of $$$ had to be spent (much of it wasted) and the Dems complained it wasn't enough.

But yes, the Repubs have just as much dirt on their hands, for losing their compass and becoming Dem wannabes. They did grow the government to official "bloated" status. Nobody can take the high ground on this issue.

But does that means we need more taxes? No, it means we need less spending and smaller government.

But it is interesting to see the responses. The people on the right make statements supporting no new taxes (one of the big reasons Bush Sr lost to Clinton - people read his lips). But the left just whines (as usual) about the right always responding, and then gratuitously throws in an anti-Bush rant (about not fixing potholes?), rather than telling us what they really want, which is to tax the #$^&#~*\@ out of us and spend it on social engineering. Trust me, they don't want to fix the roads, they want the money first, then they will decide what "we" need and they ride to the rescue and be the benificent providers of all our needs, congratulating themselves for saving us once again.

Save me from those that want to save me! "