Maryland Blogger alliance
The Maryland Blogger Alliance
Maryland gas tax to increase?
A brief report on the WBAL-TV web page indicates that Governor [gag me] Martin O'Malley is thinking about raising gasoline taxes in Maryland.
The pinhead-in-chief uttered the following gibberish, according to the TV report:
"We are allowing people to be taxed by the circumstance of gridlock and congestion and traffic, which actually takes far more dollars out of their wallets every year than whatever is currently paid in a gas tax that hasn't been adjusted in years,"
I will be God damned if I can parse anything meaningful out of that sentence, other than the fact that the Boy Governor thinks the gasoline tax ought to be raised, for no other reason than it has not been raised recently.
A bit of perspective:
- Maryland's gasoline tax stands at 23.5 cents/gallon. This is higher than the national median. In fact, only 17 states tax gasoline at a higher rate than Maryland.
- The federal government taxes gasoline at 18.5 cents/gallon.
- Thus 42 cents out of that three bucks a gallon you just paid are going to the government. And some in the federal government have floated the idea of a tax increase, for reasons of their own.
So if nitwit O'Malley thinks the tax is due to be raised, he will probably argue that it's justified because the tax, as a percentage of the cost of gasoline, has decreased so. By Democrat logic, that means it is "affordable." Specifically: when gasoline cost $1.75/gallon, the combined federal and state tax load was 24%. When gasoline increased to $2.75/gallon, the tax "rate" dropped to 15%. Now that we are paying about $3.05 on average (according to today's online data), the tax "rate" is a mere 14 percent.
It's a safe assumption that O'Malley longs to return to the halcyon days of the Harry Hughes and Parris Glendening administrations. So Blogger 1947 will predict that his secret desire is to see gasoline taxes at around 73 cents a gallon, i.e. 24 percent. But being a political realist, MO'M knows that will not fly, and that furthermore he needs to leave room for Nancy Pelosi et. al. to get their pound of flesh from the motoring public. So he will seek to double the MD gasoline tax to 47 cents, hoping that when the dust clears, he will have at least 36 cents/gallon. More money to fund his political agenda, among the illegal immigrants, convicted felons an other castoffs the Democrats depend upon so.
The next time you find yourself forced to pony up $3.05 a gallon (today's average), remember that you would be paying only $2.63, were it not for the money going to the government in Washington that has also driven up the cost of your car with ridiculous "safety" features, and the government in Annapolis that has decided to give a tuition discount to illegal invaders undocumented immigrants.