By Mike Thayer
I really hate the games of manipulation and half truth liberal-minded people play. Take for example a recent newsletter piece done by Johnson County Supervisor Janelle Rettig. The misinformation Janelle puts out is called "Janelle's Journal" and this edition features a piece she did about how Iowa’s gas tax isn't high enough. Her words are highlighted.
Start cussing me now, but I have to say it. Iowa’s gas tax must be raised.
SHOCKER! A liberal calling for a tax hike....
Never mind making a call for a review on how wisely tax money is being spent and accounted for, skip that - just raise taxes! Never mind asking, do we really need this new road? Never mind asking, "Why is gas tax money being used on this non-road project?"
First of all, I really think we have to pay closer attention to the true cost of driving for our car-dependent culture to change. We are going to pay this cost one way or another (wars come to mind), so a user fee to force decisions makes a lot of sense to me.
She wants to start charging you a user fee. Note the use of the word, "force." You MUST start thinking the way Janelle does! If she doesn't like your decision making, then by gosh she'll FORCE you to behave how she wants you to behave with legislation!
That being said, the reason Iowa’s gas tax must be raised is quite simply the Iowa infrastructure is crumbling and there isn’t enough money in the system to make the needed repairs.
That's crap. Iowa infrastructure isn't as good as it could be because government priorities are out of whack. I reject the general characterization of all Iowa infrastructure as "crumbling," Janelle's use of the word is intentionally vague. It's an attempt to play on your emotions, not an appeal to your logic and common sense. The fact is, instead of the government placing a proper focus on repairing roads/infrastructure, money was spent on silly things like attracting the film industry to Iowa. Instead of bringing older roads up to par, decisions were made to build new ones..... Why did road 'X' get more money to maintain than road 'Y'? The list of reasons go on, the notion that there is a lack of funding is bunk. I'll get into that in a bit more detail later on, OH, speaking of detail, note that Janelle Rettig didn't provide any!
We will pay for this one way or another. Closed bridges, detours, bad roads effecting our fuel economy, repairs to vehicles caused by bad roads, and abandoned roads are all coming to be across Iowa. Another problem is a significant amount of road and bridge work is being paid for from property tax to subsidize the Road Use Tax Fund. Additionally, a gas tax is the only significant current source of revenue that is applied to out-of-state drivers as well as Iowans.
There's that liberal mindset working, "...bad roads effecting our fuel economy....." and "repairs to vehicles caused by bad roads...." that has NOTHING to do with the gas tax supposedly not being high enough. Rettig is trying to drive a wedge here, she's trying to get you to feel like a victim, blame your car repair needs on underfunded government! A lack of gas tax money did not cause your car to go out of alignment because you hit a pothole, poor road management did. It's a management issue, not a funding issue.
Since 1989, the gas tax in Iowa has been 22 cents per gallon. One cent of the tax goes to underground storage tank clean up and the remainder is used for road construction, repairs and maintenance. In 1989, an average gallon of gas cost $1.02 and 21 cents (20.6 %) went for roads. Today an average gallon of gas in Iowa costs $3.27 and 21 cents (6.4%) still goes for roads.
And there's the blatant misinformation and manipulation. Check out what Rettig did with the numbers. She intentionally misleads you with percentages. Of course the percentage of tax for the 1989 price of gasoline is going to be higher than for 2011. But that's not how it works. Remember, Rettig is a county supervisor, she should know better than do something like this, but no, she opted to mislead you. The percentage and what the price of gas was in 1989 vs. 2011 is irrelevent. The tax collection is 21 cents per gallon. It's a volume thing. The more gas people buy, the more tax collection the state gets. If you bought 20 gallons of gas in 1989, the state collected $4.20. If you bought 20 gallons of gas yesterday, the state collected $4.20. The state isn't collecting fewer dollars as Rettig implied, look at that percentage thing she tried to play again. She how blatantly dishonest that is? So with that in mind, here's an obvious omission on Rettig's part: An increase in gasoline sales, provides greater tax collection for the state. More people are driving in and through the state than in 1989. That means more fuel is being bought. Yes, an increase in traffic means greater wear and tear on the roads, but is also means a larger chunk of tax collection to take care of it. Funny, Rettig left that part out.....
According to the Iowa Department of Transportation website:
reference: http://www.iowadot.gov/about/traffic.html
That's a lot of miles, needing a lot of fuel. Gee, VOLUME!
There are more vehicles registered and more miles being driven today, than in 1989. In '89, there were 2,730,604 registered vehicles in the state of Iowa according to the IA DOT. In 2003 (most recent data) there were 3,400,311 registered vehicles.
Miles Driven (also according to the IA. DOT): 1989 - 22,509 (millions of miles)..... Compared to 2003 - 30,461.....
Gee, VOLUME!
reference: http://www.iowadot.gov/saferroads_quick_facts.pdf
Something else Rettig left out..... After federal taxes are figured in, Iowans currently pay 40.4 cents in tax per gallon of gasoline.... She didn't bother to mention federal highway dollars coming into the state. Granted that money has strings attached, but Rettig omitted that from her argument because it doesn't help her.
Something else Rettig and her liberal-minded friends don't want to consider: Gasoline burning snowmobiles, off-road vehicles, lawnmowers, weedeaters, chainsaws, leaf blowers.... There's tax collection there, for items that don't use the roads. Guess what kind of purchases have been on the rise since 1989? Did leaf blowers even exist in 1989? Gas powered tools are far more prevalent than they were decades ago, that's more money for the state. Gas powered generators, compressors, concrete saws, drills, edgers and the list goes on.... All things, fueled by gasoline, taxes collected via items that don't use the road.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Rettig.
Iowa’s public roadway system is comprised of over 114,000 miles of roads with approximately 25,000 bridges. While I would like to see us embrace and develop alternative transportation options, Iowa’s economy relies on roads. Until more of our childhood dreams from Star Trek come true and we can transport goods and people with Scotty beaming us up, we must maintain an efficient, safe and convenient roadway system.
Beam her up Scotty....
Iowa’s gas tax hasn’t been allowed to keep up with inflation. We pay the same today as we did 22 years ago, yet the cost of building and maintaining roadways has dramatically increased. At the risk of you cussing me, I have to say Iowa’s gas tax must be raised.
Rettig's statement is based in complete crap. The "Iowa's gas tax hasn't been allowed to keep up with inflation" line is a big pile of horse manure. It's not about the price of gas, it's about VOLUME. Does it cost more to repair roads? Probably so, note that Rettig didn't provide any data to support that, but I'll concede construction costs. But the state does in fact collect more in fuel taxes than it did in 1989. People are buying more gas, there are more things to put gas in.
Instead of making a call for higher taxes, Rettig should do the RESPONSIBLE thing and ask questions. Is the gas tax collection only being used on roads and bridges as appropriate? Why does road 'X' get more money that road 'Y'? Why are we spending so much money on administration instead of concrete? But Rettig doesn't want to ask hard questions, she just wants more of YOUR money.
And here's how you KNOW Rettig is being intellectually dishonest: In making a "we need higher gas taxes" argument in the name of better roads, a true leader would show 1989 fuel tax collections and expenditures for road maintenance/construction.... And contrast that with today's fuel tax collections and expenditures for road maintenance/construction. But she didn't do that. Why? Because the numbers don't support her call for higher taxes.
And say, didn't I hear somewhere that Rettig claimed to be a fiscal conservative as she campaigned for office?
Let's see now.... Rettig wasn't straight with you on being a fiscal conservative, she wasn't straight with you on the gas tax..... What else is Rettig misleading you on?
You can cuss Rettig out at: jrettig@co.johnson.ia.us
Janelle Rettig, straight? That would be out of character with her scheming lack of character. Ditto for her lack of intelligence and integrity. But con jobs are all we can expect from another sycophant for the Iowa City-Johnson County tribe of hallucinating lesbians. Her membership in and carrying water for the local loco lesbomafia was what got her her job in the first place. So of course she'll be happy to jerk the taxpayers for more public funds. Then the money can be cycled through the University of Homo Howling and re-distributed in the local loco homoembezzlement economy to selected teachers' pets. Plant the pluckings from Des Moines, cycle them through university contracts and personnel, then re-pluck the laundered money via local taxes and sprinkle where you wish. Nice racket Rettig runs with her accomplices. It's too much to expect this racket to be consistent about anything though, Rettig in particular. But if she ever evolved out of her slime pit far enough to get a clue, she'd be the first to slap a statewide tax on bicycles, bike tires, and bike paraphernalia so she could theoretically help pull her own weight (imagine that) in the area of funding her self-serving goal of more bicycle paths. We aren't supposed to even be thinking about that hypocritical inconsistency, because now and forever every day the gasoline users can be subjected to another Rettig Robbery Day. Huzzah! Now gas taxes fleeced from all over Iowa can be dumped into the university's black hole and then be extracted as Rettig's racket preordains from its backroom cabals-- but only if the suckers are sufficiently anesthetized along the way and conned into accepting highway robbery.
Posted by: randy crawford | December 17, 2011 at 08:12 PM
This summer and fall I saw them putting in the bike trail extension south from Napoleon park. I couldn't help thinking that even though it was nice, was that really the best priority to spend money on in this economic climate? Especially when South Gilbert street already had a wide bicycle rated sidewalk that took you to the same place.
Posted by: Michael Gilson | December 18, 2011 at 10:09 AM