Oregon Legislature Approves Plan to Start Charging Tolls (Trunc)

Willamette Week ^ | July 7, 2017 | Max Denning

[TheBattman]

So - build interstate highways with taxpayer funds, maintain them with taxpayer funds, then charge citizens to USE the roads they already pay to build and keep up? What kind of Socialist insanity is Oregon?

Oh - the same state that just voted to confiscate (permanently) firearms from law-abiding citizens without so much as a real charge or court date...

[Bull Snipe]

Not a Federal Highway. The interstate system is set up that once it is built, the state assumes responsibility for upkeep and maintenance of the highway. It becomes their property.

[BobL]

If you don’t like the tolls, you can SWIM across the Columbia.

...at least that’s the ‘logic’ of the toll road (paid) shills here.

[Twotone]

Oregon, like most Dem states, does not have a revenue problem. They have a spending problem. This probably won’t fly with the Feds (under a Trump Administration at least), but they’ve got tons of new taxes they’re looking at, including:

A sales tax on motor vehicles
A sales tax on bicycles with a value over $200
Increases in DMV fees for registration & titling
Increases in the gas tax, already at 30 cents per gallon
A statewide employee payroll tax to subsidize public transit.

The list goes on & on...

[Don W]

I was thinking just take the Astoria bridge. A bit out of the way for some folks, though...

[fr_freak]

Oregon does not have a sales tax, so they got to get money from somewhere.

Perhaps not, but they do have a pretty darn high income tax. Where is all that money going?

[DownInFlames]

Nope. Interstates were built w federal money. They can add lanes though w tolls.

[hal ogen]

delaware first, then, maryland (THE Freak state) put tolls on I95 at their border many years ago. I think they are each around $6 a pop. Criminals. (They even put tolls on the secondary road that you could take to get around the toll area)

[BBB333]

“Oregon does not have a sales tax, so they got to get money from somewhere. “

Montana, where I reside, does not have a sales tax either.

We live within our means. Oregon, not so much...

Resist your urge to tax and spend.

[BBB333]

“I was thinking just take the Astoria bridge.”

It WAS a toll bridge and stopped collecting tolls in 1993, two years ahead of schedule.

I was there for the ribbon cutting!