…Along comes State Sen. John “Let Them Be Taxed” Carona. The senator from Dallas is, seriously, going to introduce legislation next Session to raise the state’s gasoline tax by 10 cents per gallon. This would take even more of your money and shovel it to the state’s fiscally-inept, policy-wayward transportation agency.
As a Republican, Mr. Carona should know better, but apparently doesn’t. As a reminder: The solution to bad government spending is not more money to be badly spent.
The Texas Department of Transportation has been chided for spending $9 million of your money to lobby you on policy positions. It also announced this week that it double-counted $1.1 billion of revenue — causing fiscal chaos.
And so the senator from Dallas wants to give them even more of your money. That’s what a counselor might call “enabling bad behavior.”
When state agencies proves themselves incapable of doing their job, lawmakers shouldn’t give added incentive to do the job even more badly.
By raising taxes, Sen. Carona is simply proving himself to be a tax-and-spend Republican more interested in paving Texas with your money than he is on pulling hard on the reins of fiscal management. It’s just easier for him to raise your taxes than it is to reform a state agency that operates under his nose.
