Taxation Without Responsibility
The Las Vegas Review-Journal positively rips into a proposal by Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn to raise gasoline taxes to pay for "infrastructure repairs". Oberstar made the proposal in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, of course. The Review-Journal points out the obvious: Why is a tax increase necessary when some $69 billion was glad-handed away in Federal pork in the last three years alone. If infrastructure is such a priority, why is so much being wasted - such as the $14.6 million Oberstar secured to extend a paved recreation trail in his district.
But Rep. Oberstar and his ilk can't avoid the most obvious question, one that should be raised anytime a subordinate asks his boss to bolster his expense account: What are you doing with the rest of your money?
Rep. Oberstar would have Americans believe there isn't a spare nickel in all of Washington. As the watchdogs at Citizens Against Government Waste so dutifully point out, Congress has spent more than $69 billion on frivolous pork over the past three years alone. The 2005 highway bill, which was larded up with low-priority projects including Alaska's "Bridges to Nowhere," already allocates $2 billion per year for bridge repairs.
Rep. Oberstar himself partook in the 2005 porkfest, scoring $14.6 million for his Duluth-area constituents, primarily to extend the nation's longest paved recreation trail.
Now Rep. Oberstar wants all of Congress to go cold-turkey on earmarks. He assures us that despite the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on earmarks and low-priority road projects over the years, the madness will finally stop if only his 5-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase is passed.
"Yes," taxpayers will reply. "Just as the 1986 Immigration Reform & Control Act was the absolute last amnesty Congress would ever award to illegals."
It's good that Rep. Oberstar has sworn to adhere to fiscal responsibility, but not unexpected that it took a disaster in his own back yard to make him realize that Congress has been derelict in maintaining federal infrastructure. Had he and his spendthrift colleagues paid attention to their duties and fought for this principle but a few years ago, he wouldn't have to ask for a tax increase.
If there is a consensus in Washington that bridge and highway repairs must be a higher priority in the federal budget, lawmakers should simply cut back on the pork and have the Transportation Department make it a significant priority.
If the estimates that the editorial notes are correct, infrastructure repairs will cost some $200 billion over the next twenty years. If Congress had not been busy feeding on fresh, glistening gobbets of pork they could have been almost one third of the way through the necessary repairs just in the past three years. Shouldn't we voters be demanding that out Congress show some responsibility with the taxes they already have before we grant them additional funds?
(Note: The editorial rips into a "Democrat" for raising the taxes. This actually is not a partisan issue. Everyone should be dead set against the porkfests that Congress wallows in. Because the irresponsible waste of our money must stop.)
By Ted Goldman, Sunday, 19 August , 2007 @ 10:05 am
$200 billion to fix our infrastucture over 20 years is peanuts when compared to the amounts that are spent on illegal immigrants.
Stop tax increases and throw out the lawbreakers.