In an obvious attempt to place blame and rip conservative Republican members of our legislature, your editorial claimed our legislators should have taken advantage of the drop in gas prices and raised the gas tax by 25 cents per gallon to $.50. Continuing with the Governors standard message you claim that $262,000,000 is needed to fix “our crumbling roads and decaying bridges”. You said a poll conducted around the time gas was selling for $1.75 a gallon that 79% of Idahoans agreed road funding should be increased.
Who was polled and what questions were asked? What independent study done outside of state agencies came up with the $262,000,000 figure? Why should the heaviest regressive tax burden for fixing the roads fall on the lower and middle income families? In states where road money is taken from their general fund the roads are always in repair. This newspaper and our Governor need to take a lesson in economics and reform the way we pay for infrastructure. Roads and bridges benefit everyone, and therefore everyone should be responsible. Idaho is badly in need of tax reform, and our conservative legislators realize that.
