November 28, 2006 by Matt Heckman.

It looks like we will have a Speaker DeWeese.

http://www.pennlive.com/newslogs/patriotnews/index.ssf?/mtlogs/penn_patriotnews/archives/2006_11.html#208966

Now despite this being even scarier we now have a really different case here.  We have a State Senate filled with assholes, and a State House run by our official state Christmas poop Bill DeWeese.  So you can say things in The House will be the fecal matter from The Senate.  Sadly we don’t get a chance to flush this poop down the shitter for another two years.  Hold your noses, because it’s going to smell bad.

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November 28, 2006 by Matt Heckman.

First off before I begin I’d like to say that I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I sure did myself, and I also attended my 10 year High School Class Reunion this past weekend as well, and it was really cool to meet old friends again.

Now onto business. As most of you already know that almost every Pennsylvanian is outraged at Ed Rendell’s proposal to increase the gasoline tax. The new alternative is now leasing The Turnpike privately where it would generate over 30 billion in revenue for our infrastructure. Other considerations have been also converting other interstates from I-80 to I-79 into toll highways as well.

My stand on this is that I support this new method of funding. We have to face reality here. The gasoline tax is obsolete. It was one thing when crude oil was $10 to $15 a barrel, but those days are gone. Any increase in the gasoline tax at this point would be regressive to the consumer by inflating the costs of shipping goods. Also eventually at some point we seek to get off of our dependence of oil be it electric cars, or other fuel sources making the gasoline tax pointless.

Now the bad part of this plan would be that we will find ourselves in the same problem as we currently have with property tax reform. I said once before that we have either a income tax, or a sales tax, but not both. Well we should have either gasoline taxes, or toll roads, but not both. Just as a income tax is the least regressive solution toward property tax reform, toll highways can be the least regressive. Another issue would be concerns of congestion. We can easily resolve that problem by promoting EZ-Pass, or better yet give an EZ-Pass to every vehicle owner upon renewing their registration. New Jersey has proven this to be successful when they tried it mainly for The Garden State Parkway in order to curb the constant threats by the union to strike as well as severe congestion at the toll plazas.

We have a chance to get ahead of the ball here by implementing a plan that will be the eventual future of funding our infrastructure. That is why I would support this idea. Let’s prove to everybody why America starts in Pennsylvania.

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