Oh golly gee whiz, look at this. The light-rail fanatics in Charlotte are now saying the 1/2 cent local sales tax increase is not going to be enough money to pay for everything. Anyone at all surprised?
So now they're going to want to come back and raise taxes again to pay for rail expansion.
CATS chief executive Keith Parker has discussed seeking more money as a
possibility, but he hasn't actively promoted it yet. It's unlikely any
new tax would be approved in the next year while the economy is in
turmoil.
All this for 8,000 people to ride roundtrip each day. How many hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be taken from all taxpayers in Mecklenburg County (and the visitors) and redistributed to the few who use transit?
With lottery sales slumping, officials are looking at new ways to boost sales… And what can do that, you ask?
More advertising — this time, in Spanish.
But it looks like they may have a little problem:
"State lottery officials want to start advertising lottery tickets in
Spanish, but first they'll have to maneuver around a law prohibiting
them from targeting specific groups.
The 2005 law that created the lottery states, "No advertising may intentionally target specific groups or economic classes.""
Wait a minute… can't target "economic classes"? Isn't that EXACTLY what the lottery does anyway?
Going to DC to celebrate Obama's inauguration?
Well, if so, you can visit your favorite DC watering hole until 5 am during inauguration week!
"The D.C. Council approved emergency legislation this evening that will
allow District bars, nightclubs and restaurants to serve alcohol until
5 a.m. — three hours later than usual — and remain open for food around
the clock from Jan. 17 until the morning after Obama’s swearing-in Jan.
20."
Ah, yes, nothing says "safety" like packing a couple of million extra people into DC and letting them get sauced until the sun comes up. Good times!
Beijing? Shanghai?
Fill in the blank here:
"Twenty years from now, the era of unchecked urban sprawl in _______ could be a distant memory.
New
homes would be smaller and built close together in urban centers and
along major roads. Getting around on foot, bike or mass transit would
be not only possible, but preferable to going by car.
"If we do nothing … [the growth] will continue just to spread across
the region like peanut butter," he said. "We can either intervene and
shape the growth or not intervene and continue to sprawl."
If you said Raleigh, give yourself a red gold star.
The elitist Raleigh leadership thinks it knows best where future Raleigh residents will live. Want a nice sized house with a backyard in a neighborhood? Too bad. Condo living is what's best for you.
And EVERYONE wants to be able to bike to work, right? Or at least, we all want government to dictate to us what form of transportation we should use.
My biggest beef with this is the sheer arrogance that a few people think they know best how other people should live their lives. Just because they don't like "sprawl" means other people are forced to live by the rules of a few. Hmm… seems we revolted against that type of tyranny once already.
What a Thanksgiving treat from lame duck Gov. Mike Easley to the rest of us — more debt!
In case you missed it, last Wednesday, Gov. Easley announced he was going to recommend that the state move forward with over $700 million in government construction projects in order to "stimulate the economy." What he doesn't exactly tell you is that all these projects are to be financed with Certificates of Participation (COPS) which is nothing more than new (albeit, non-voter approved) debt.
So here we have the State facing a potential $2 billion shortfall and Gov. Easley deciding to make it just a little more difficult by tacking on $50 million or so in new debt payments!
Maybe if Gov. Easley read Brian Balfour's series on how to solve the budget crisis, and specifically, item #3, he would hold off on these projects in order to balance the budget next year.
But why does he care? He's not going to be the one having to deal with the crisis next year. Nor is he the one that's going to have to approve the massive tax increases that are coming to feed the insastiable appetite for spending that NC has had the past few years.
So thanks, Mike. Can you just go to the beach already before you do anymore damage?
One of the more interesting items to come out of our post-election poll was that more NCers now think the state is headed in the right direction than off on the wrong track. 42% said right direction to 41% for wrong track.
In our poll taken the week before the election it was 30-58 in favor of wrong track.
Digging a little deeper into the crosstabs, the big shift comes from African-American voters, who before the election said NC was on the wrong track by a 43-47 margin, now think the state is heading in the right direction by a 59-26 spread.
So basically we've had a 38 point shift in the sentiment of African-American voters about the direction of the state. (Me thinks they are projecting the Obama win to the state level, cause I seriously doubt they have that strong of confidence in the Perdue administration).
Similarly, white voters while still thinking the state is headed in the wrong direction by a 38-45% margin, have had a 27 point swing towards right track. Prior to the election, the margin was 27-61%.
What this says to me is voters may be setting very high expectations for Obama to really turn things around. Do voters have unreasonable expectations of how much "change" Obama is going to be able to bring about in a short amount of time. It will be interesting to see how much leeway he is given if a year or two from now, things haven't gotten much better with the economy.
Oh look at this… Less than a week after Civitas' Brian Balfour pens an op-ed in the Durham Herald Sun calling for the shuttering of corporate welfare behemoth Golden LEAF, a glowing profile piece just happens to be written by the Associated Press to run in many papers across the state.
That's just a coincidence, right?
There's NO WAY Golden Leaf head Dan Gerlach would call up a buddy in the press and get them to write a puff piece to do a little damage control… Nah… That would never happen…
I'm getting pretty annoyed at the mainstream media continuing to frame the capping of the gas tax as a "cost" to the state.
The latest, is this AP article entitled, "Gas tax limit means $600 million lost for state."
Why is it not written, "Gas tax limit means $600M savings for taxpayers."
Apparently, the press thinks the economy is just peachy and we taxpayers should gladly give up an additional $600M in revenue. It's almost like it believes the money belongs to the government first and is generously letting us keep it.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Today, Senate Leader Marc Basnight gave Governor-elect the ok to nominate current DOT board member Lanny Wilson as the next Secretary of DOT (replacing Tony Rand's campaign treasurer – Lyndo Tippett).
So, how does one get to be DOT Secretary like Mr. Wilson? Apparently give a lot of money to Democrats. According to State Board of Elections reports, Wilson has given almost $300,000 to Democratic campaigns over the past 10 years or so. (Download full list of Wilson's contributions here)
Let's also not forget about the sweetheart deal his development company gave Governor Easley on an piece of land in Carteret County that Don Carrington of Carolina Journal extensively documented here and here.
Hmm… nominating big fundraisers and political cronies to the DOT board? I thought Bev swore she wasn't the status quo…
As you have probably heard in the news today, the 21st Century Transportation Committee recommended a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax as one option to raise additional revenue for transportation needs.
We here at RCC and Civitas have supported a VMT in the past, but only as a replacement for the gas tax, not in addition to it.
Here's the deal. As we buy more fuel efficient vehicles and as different ways to power automobiles come onto the scene, taxing gasoline is an unsustainable model. Gas tax revenues now are basically flat. Imagine what will happen in 10 or 15 years when cars are powered by hydrogen, or hog waste or whatever else innovation brings.
So as more people have differently powered cars and the cars that run on gas use less and less of it, there has to be some way to pay for roads that accurate reflects how much people use them. That is where the VMT comes in. Instead of paying a tax on gasoline, consumers (drivers) are taxed on how much they use the roads — a true user fee for consuming public goods.
I know many people will want to dismiss the VMT from the start, but give it a chance and read up on it. Check out this report from Oregon where they studied it. The key to this however, is this cannot be a new tax but a replacement for another.
We need to reform the way DOT spends current money before we ever think of giving them more.