Exclusive: Details Of SC Senate’s Alternative Roads Plan Revealed
AMENDMENT TO EXISTING PROPOSAL WOULD RAISE GAS TAX, LOWER INCOME TAX, “REFORM” SCDOT || You must Subscribe or log in to read the rest of this content.
AMENDMENT TO EXISTING PROPOSAL WOULD RAISE GAS TAX, LOWER INCOME TAX, “REFORM” SCDOT || You must Subscribe or log in to read the rest of this content.
24 comments
“core function of government” .. well it’s nice to know there is a function for government around here.
The “core function of government” is more government.
This “exclusive” is kinda pointless without details of the proposed “reforms.” Man, you have to put half your words in “‘s when discussing Fits and S.C. politicians.
This is the worst liar,liar pants on fire plan I have ever heard of. You’re raising taxes PERIOD and try to use government double speak to the citizens is horrible. And this SC General Assembly will never lower taxes because they can’t. This state needs close to 300 Billion dolllars to even start addressing the Highway, Bridges. One last thing before I go to bed “THERE IS NO PLAN’ THERE IS ONLY CORRUPTION.
You got it right.
Why would people believe a raise on gas tax isn’t them paying this tax. It’s their money.
Thanks Fast Eddy23.
Mmmmm … That sounds like a hose-the-poor plan.
The poor don’t pay much income tax, but the do have to pay a gas tax if the need to get downtown to collect food stamps and welfare.
They love to hose the poor. Now that they don’t have actual slave wenches to hose.
“Yes, yes, yes … Stand on that chair … You can leave your hat on … I know what love is”
The poor do pay state income tax. Do you even know what you are talking about?
Of course they do. That’s my point. Even if they don’t file, those income taxes their landlords pay come outta the rents … Is this not taught in common core math classes? … Doh!
What welfare? What is the name of the program you call “welfare”
Cat got your tongue Eddy?
Stupid is? What welfare do you think? “Obama’s stash”. The “g’ment check”. The Dole.
They just had an election in England and the welfare sluts lost.
I suppose one could by stretching the definitions a bit, by calling unemployment “insurance” a welfare program … that is after all subsidized by Gruberment and pays far more to the unemployed than they ever contribute to the welfare system.
The increase in gas tax doesn’t mean the money will be set aside for roads, but just another means to tax us to death. The tax swap is tax the poor and give the rich a break in taxes over 10 years but the 12 cents is over 3 years-10 years reduce 2 percentage points LMAO. Last year the legislators robbed the SHIMS $93 MILLION AND PLACED IT THE GENERAL FUND. SHIMS was a 3 cents gas tax supposedly for road maintenance and improvements.
If massive tax cuts were the answer to increased prosperity wouldn’t’ Brownback have created a utopia in Kansas by now?
As it is…well not so much…just Google it…
Well, keep in mind that living children in the NICUs are not nearly as important to the average GOPer as a fetus.
They even love the fetuses they are willing to force to starve to death just to death a few years after birth. “afterbirth” … that reminds me. They may soon make it a crime to destroy afterbirth. Unless it is fried up in a sammich smeared with Dooks and served to them by hot, nekkid, barely legal, pregnant and barefoot “Republican” women. FITS will have the exclusive story on that soon from inside sources.
Babies need food, medical care, and a guardian, which they can’t provide for themselves, so sometimes the government has to pay for one or more of those. Eventually they will also need schooling, which can also be paid for by government. That is cause enough for the GOP to hate the ever loving shit out of infants. At least while they are a fetuses they aren’t costing them much of anything.
The best are the requests that are just not needed. MUSC (Charleston, SC) requesting millions for a new children’s hospital when they already are up to their necks in debt and have a nice facility. Already announced 50 million coming and then reduced to 25 and now 20! How about saving that money as they already have a facility. Just because it is time to paint does not suggest the purchase of a new home!
The NICU at MUSC is treating fragile newborns in storage closets because of lack of space. A touch more than paint is needed to solve that problem.
How about some property tax relief? Oh wait, we need to help our doners not the majority of the population..
FITS, isn’t it a little too easy to say lawmakers “have more than enough money to fund this core function of government”? How long are we going to wait for that to happen before our roads become impassable? We know that any cutting/shifting of existing taxes will only be minimal if it happens at all.
The national average for state fuel taxes and fees is 28.2 cents. SC at 16.75 cents has state gasoline taxes that are almost as low as Alaska at 11.3 cents….a state that pumps the stuff out of the ground! http://www.api.org/~/media/files/statistics/state-motor-fuel-excise-tax-update-apr-2015.pdf.
I don’t have a problem raising state gas tax….it’s long overdue. But, our politicians are shortsighted because the increase in the gas tax only gets us to “average” and due to improving fuel efficiency is unlikely to make any difference in the actual dollars going to fix and build roads. Hybrids get 40+ mpg and more are on the road everyday. All electric vehicles pay no gas tax and the growth in EV ownership is expected to continue. Tesla will be producing lithium batteries in a year at its new gigafactory and battery costs worldwide will fall dramatically over the next 5 years. http://www.autonews.com/article/20150330/OEM10/303309992/lg-chem-exec:-teslas-gigafactory-to-cut-ev-costs.
I think it could be argued that the gas tax increase we’re fretting over will be a zero increase to the total transportation budget as time goes on. Our roads will have to be paid for with some alternative means funding…..likely a sales tax. Richland County passed theirs last year and many other counties saw the light years ago and are already on their second penny tax for transportation program (the first went so well voters approved it again, these programs usually run for 5 years and then end).
So, the 12 cents increase gets us to the national average. To me, that’s a start in helping our road problems but it’s not likely to fix things long term. Georgia has a 26.5 cents state fuel tax but just implemented a huge sales tax increase on all vehicle transactions, new and used. Georgia’s lawmakers apparently see that gas tax is a decreasing revenue source going forward. But hey, since we haven’t raised our gas tax since something like the 70’s I guess we have to start somewhere….but it just means we’ll likely continue lagging behind the rest of the country when it comes to funding our roads.
The source is Tom Davis, isn’t it. Tom, really? A tax increase?