|
By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer
There are three classic one-liners that everyone assumes are untrue:
The check’s in the mail.
This will only hurt a little.
And my favorite, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
I have a one-liner of my own I’d like to offer up, but this one is the truth.
I want my money back.
All the vehemence and vitriol over the Columbus County commissioners lately made me start thinking about my tax dollars.
Disclaimer: I don’t live in Columbus, or pay much outside of sales tax here. I live in Bladen, and while our commissioners aren’t saints, they do a fairly good job, with a few notable exceptions. Thankfully, I don’t live in a town, so I don’t have to worry about municipal taxes on top of county taxes. The state and feds take enough, thank you very much.
It was the simple act of buying a tank of gasoline got me grumbling.
I happen to know the fellow who owns the chain of gas stations I usually patronize; we share a hometown.
His father was famous for giving people a fair shake. Hence, his son’s gas stations try to have the lowest price around.
But a big ol’ chunk of that $2 and a bit I paid recently went not to a family I know and respect, but to the state and federal government.
Then I went to the license plate agency to transfer my semi-new truck.
It’s not brand new, but newer than anything I’ve had in years. It also makes me nervous since I now have to worry about the appearance of my vehicle, but the paradox of keeping a truck clean and tidy is a column for another day.
Another disclaimer: I have always tried to drive cheap, almost disposable vehicles. I can generally get thousands more miles out of vehicles that other folks have long since given up on. It’s been a long time since I drove something that caused the license tag people to do anything other than shake their heads.
So imagine my shock when I was handed a bill that included a charge called a “highway use” tax. That portion of the bill alone was more than I’ve paid for at least three vehicles I drove for many, many thousands of miles.
Needless to say, Sam the Pig wasn’t getting any ice cream sandwiches that night.
The bigger hogs in Raleigh ate up all that month’s ice cream money, and were working on the lunch money, too.
The bad thing is no one can tell me precisely what the road use tax goes to.
Road construction? Road repair? My beloved Elwell Ferry?
And how does the state know for sure that I’m not getting one over on them? For that matter, how am I supposed to know they aren’t taking advantage of me?
I noted previously that my highway use tax was over and above what I’ve paid for several vehicles. What if I drive the equivalent of a dozen similar trucks worth of highway use tax? Are they going to audit my odometer?
Whilst I have been called a radically fundamental conservative (a moniker that makes me smile, by the way) I am not unreasonable. I understand we need tax dollars to support schools, build and repair roads, keep our homes and families safe, and do other things.
I have no problem with that.
I just have a problem with supporting several miles of highway by myself, especially when those roads are places I will never voluntarily go, like the Triangle area. The folks in the Triangle need more and better roads than we do for some reason. I think it’s because Yankees are scared of dirt roads.
With that in mind, I’m thinking of writing the folks in Raleigh and telling them I want my money back.
The governor repeatedly refuses to even discuss dropping the gas tax while fuel was past $3 a gallon, and now he likely figures we don’t need that money so badly, since gas prices are down. I guess that whatever projects the state had planned could use that money more than folks who work for a living.
Since they aren’t going to do any substantive repairs on most roads, I’ll take care of the route through my community.
I’ll bet if I poll my neighbors, we can come up with a way to get the mile-long stretch through our community paved, not covered in pea-gravel that broke three windshields I know of last year.
Of course, we’ll all need a discount on the road use tax, since we won’t be relying on the state to fix our road. And we’ll have to come up with some guidelines to charge people who drive through our community for road maintenance, as well as negotiating something to allow us to drive on roads we don’t maintain.
Sounds silly and complicated, doesn’t it?
No sillier than asking folks in the Southeast to pay to build multi-lane roads around big cities, high-speed rail systems we’ll never see, or the boondoggle of all boondoggles, the Global Transpark near Kinston.
So yes, I want my road use tax money back, but I won’t start maintaining my own highway.
I figure the state owes me a total of two cracked windshields, $10,000 in tax credits for roads I helped fix but have never seen, and a 1968 Chevrolet two-wheel-drive truck. I prefer a straight drive, but automatic’s okay, as long as there’s not a lot of chrome to polish. The dirt that seeps through the so-called paving on my road makes washing any truck a chore.
And, by the way, Governer – when I interviewed you the day you were sworn in as Attorney General, you seemed like a straight-up guy.
So from you, I’ll take a check.
Just don’t tell me it’s in the mail.
– Weaver is a staff writer at the News Reporter. He may be reached via telephone at 642-4104, or by e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz.
 |
|
|