Average Gas Prices Drop Below $2.00 per Gallon in Two States

Fuel Gauge Report ^

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

$1.79 in KC MO this evening. $1.88 on the Kansas Side.

[TurboZamboni]

‘Reordering priorities’

Gov. Mark Dayton believes Minnesota’s highway needs can’t be met without more tax revenue, by another separate tax — because “our transportation systems are getting worse” (”Dayton, GOP square off over gas tax,” Dec. 31). He proposes a clever new tax that would follow with the price of gasoline at 6.5 percent, rather than the current flat tax of 28.5 cents a gallon. Plus, if you buy anything in the seven-county metro area, you’ll get Mark Dayton’s “special” extra half-percent sales tax increase “on everything you buy” where sales tax is collected in a metro-area transaction.

First, his new tax on gas is a “surtax,” meaning it is over-and-above any other tax assessed. Second, the gas tax money was originally dedicated to pay for roads and bridges but has been hacked apart over past decades for other transportation systems of political favor. Third, I am insulted by Dayton’s comment that taxpayers are insulted because the Republicans think there are other ways to solve the problem.

“This notion that we can pay for what needs to be done for the next decade by ‘reordering priorities’ is ludicrous,” Dayton said. Families, individuals and businesses have been reordering their priorities the past six to seven years in order to survive, and will continue to do so, especially as we pay the extra $2 billion of new taxes enacted in 2013. Reports say the state has a projected $1 billion surplus from our partially reviving economy.

Seems to me a billion a year from these 2013 taxes could take care of the road problems within a few years, or has Dayton already got ideas on how to spend that billion?
I think I have a better opinion about what is ludicrous.

Henry M. Votel, Forest Lake

http://www.twincities.com/Opinion/Letters/ci_27262276/Reordering-priorities