The new transportation funding "deal," unveiled Wednesday afternoon, may bring the 2009 legislative session to a close Thursday.
After four months, this is a tempting selling point. But the deal, which could bring in roughly $50 million, is hinged on a couple of big unknowns.
• The deal would raise some $21.2 million by weaning the Idaho State Police and the state Department of Parks and Recreation off the gas tax.
It's an old idea. Gov. Butch Otter has long been looking for a new way to fund the ISP, and put gas tax dollars back into road repairs. The catch is, he's still looking for a way. So are lawmakers. And so would a task force, which would be convened to find replacement dollars.
Lawmakers are essentially wagering on the ability of the task force to find a solution, one that keeps the ISP and Parks and Recreation from reaching toward the state's general fund. If not, ISP and Parks and Recreation would be part of the scrum looking to compete for dollars that now go to public schools, universities, Medicaid and other programs.
• Another big unknown is a bill to allow the Idaho Transportation Department to compete to register truck trailers from out-of-state firms. Even the sponsor, Meridian Republican Rep. Marv Hagedorn, isn't sure how much Idaho could grab from a $1 billion registration market.
Some 5.6 million trailers are registered nationwide, and companies can shop for the best deal. Wal-Mart, for instance, registers 56,000 trailers in Oklahoma, taking advantage of a $45 fee and a $4 annual renewal. Hagedorn says his bill would establish a one-time $112 fee, with no renewal fee, and allow companies a hand in designing a specialized license plate.
Senate Transportation Committee member Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, the owner of a trucking company, doubted big companies would take up the offer. And committee chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, said any registration money would be "icing on the cake."
"I think it's just a way for us to show goodwill (toward the House)," he said. "If it works, great."
Not a rousing endorsement.
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
Goodwill toward HOUSE?
We didn't elect you bozos to show goodwill, we elected you to get business done as cheaply as possible and get the snot out of there.
Clueless, thats the word
I don't think so.
Falling on the sword was a stroke of genius if things finally get done.
The governor had his comeuppance big time and nobody is going to come out of it unaffected. If this created a sea change in EITHER direction it was a very good thing.
As Beetlejuice would say in the cartoon, "remains to be seen".
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Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. Rush Limbaugh is profoundly hard of hearing.
Millions of people like Beethoven.
Here's a couple ideas.
The Statesman suggests our political system is a slow process but it works, & we can't rush through. Only one state in the country to my knowledge has a unicameral, Nebraska. The last time I heard, they had $500,000 to work with while most ever state is raising taxes, & dependent on federal government, stimulus.
We are trillions of $ in debt while handing trillions to failing banks, AIG, & the rest responsible for breaking the world financial system. This doesn't sound like a system that is working to this taxpayer.
Get rid of one half of the problem, the Senate or House. If between the two parties they can't solve the problems in one branch, with a Gov hounding them at $30k a day, plus the expense of a second branch, we are wasting $ we don't need to. Send that $ to roads & send the dead branch packing!
If every state & federal government did this, it would save billions. What is the point of all these politicians in the pocket & bed with contributors anyway. They get elected through campaign finance, don't read bills, lobbyists paid through the same corporate un-American & agri corrupt influence, make the decisions anyway. All our representatives do is lunch, say yes, here's your tax cut, & billions to boot.
Cut representative pay, eliminate auto pay raises, take campaign finance, put it in the general fund or repay Social Security, eliminate provided health care, & eliminate retirement for current & past representatives. If their retirement was locked into Social Security they might quit robbing it, fix it, & they might also do something about health care if they had to pay their own. If the people don't have the good sense to do anythging about the real problem, don't expect any representation, & pay mor taxes!
The same representatives have been going on for years about taxpayers wages & health care costs breaking US, the big three for example. Why would we continue to pay our representatives, provide health care, & retirement when they claim these are the reasons we are losing in all the same areas? They claim Americans won't do jobs we used to do for a iving wage 30 years ago, they promoted illegal immigration, busted unions, held down wages, busted our health care system, & set up a network drug cartels we will pay millions to help Mexico fight, traffic their product. We've failed in our own drug war for years & pay billions to keep Americans in prison while we help Mexican drug cartels set up shop in America?
Every problem we hav is the direct reult of our failed government, trillion of $ in debt, drugs, prisons, illegal immigration, NOT free trade with poison, sheet rock, & who know what coming into the US. Our state legislators just passed & set in motion a joke to control mussels, fine $57 & it will NOT get the job done. Cart before the horse approach, again, just to make it look like they are accomlishing something?
www.nextrevolution.net There are 22 to 1 lobbyists to representatives in DC. Nextrev is the lobby I set up for US & the people choose not to get our representation back working for US? Calling, emailing, or writing has gotten some attention but not enough. Representatives are hearing US, Otter stpped acepting $4,500 to live in his own house, Obama is trying to get offshore tax evasion undr control but corproate un-America is flexing it's muscle in Congress to defeat any chance. Just like Otter suggesting to me the USDA & FDA do inspections in support of contributors, Congress is holding US hostage in DC!,
When the American people stop the greatest scam the world has ever seen, this two party joke we call representation, democracy manipulated through campaign finance, we will once again be the nation we were when, as the constitution, & declaration intended by the people who wrote them, meant US to be.
Full financial disclosure by all our representatives & family
will show how campaign finance is killing US. Who contributes, who receives, investments, who gets tax cuts, & billions in our tax $. Not only does government contradict represnetation by continuing to do this, so do We the People if we allow this to continue.
Defense contractors contribute millions, representatives hand them billions, representatives invest in defense, make millions, start wars, & defense hand our tax $ back to representatives to elect more representatives & continue the cycle until they become lobbyist who tell representatives what contributors need!!!! They are making out like a bandit, floating our tax $ around like bad notes in a bank or kiting checks. Why would they stop? They are making millions!
When I worked at Darigold, my boss was leasing old semi trailers from a local company at $1,200 a month for years on end. You could have bought those same trailers at $5,000 each, a one time cost. Are tax cuts so lucrative for corporations, the dairy industry being a highly subsidized industry receiving billions of our tax $, that they can lease junk at these costs? There is something wrong if the people who are losing homes, jobs, life in wars, while having taxes raised as individuals, also have to pay the taxes evaded in this corporate tax evasion through campaign finance.
The same dairy was hauling tankers of milk from Caldwell to Boise, unloading, reloading, hauling back to Caldwell, unloading, reloading, back to Boise, & doing the same thing day after day, month after month, just to maintain a grade A rating. This is what the same employees who worked at Darigold told me, truck drivers as well, who made $50k plus a year, yet who would not tell the truth to the USDA when I filed a case after being wrongfully fired. Their jobs were threatened, the same boss who I reported told them they would lose jobs just as in Seatle when they went on strike, an outside trucking ocmpany would come in & if they kept their jobs, wages would be cut!
I answered a letter from Darigold corporate office in Seattle, {Darigold by the way, licensed their trucks in Oregon I believe} asking for information into theft fraud, & waste. I was not to be harassed as the letter made clear, but was fired, & Gov Otter & interim Gov Risch didn't care if you consume rotten milk or pay their taxes!
I saved Darigold what I believe to be millions of $ by convincing them to lease a warehouse in Boise rather than Fruitland. Now one diver can haul the same number of loads to the warehouse in Boise that used to be hauked to Fruitland every day saving thousands of $ a day. Thousands less than going to Fruitland, saving fuel, & damage to roads Otter wants to raise taxes fixing.
My boss used to bring in an outside carrier to move loads at $50 more than company drives could do the job while leasing trailers from another business at $1,200 a month. Fruitland was 100 miles round trip & the warehouse in Boise is 18 miles. The only draw back is the price of leasing in Boise verses Fruitland which is no doubt more per square ft. I believe the lease would not add up to thousands of $ a day, 365 day a year.
There are plenty of other costs involved but how would I or anyone else know what they are? Our representatives, Otter, Risch, House, & Senate could ask a few question but why? Campaign finance is worth more to them than taxpayer $ & food safety. We used to also haul milk back & forth to Fruitland as it was not fit to drink & had to be rerun several times before it was or wasn't, hog food if not & sometimes made it to WINCO, Ridleys, Pauls, McDonalds, Burger King, & more anyway! Information I get is Costco is looking at a contract with Darigold. This is all private label, you don't even know you're drinking Darigold.
If I were a taxpayer who didn't want to pay more of corporate un-America's & agri corporation's taxes evaded through campaign finance, drink rotten milk I subsidize through taxes, I would ask Otter why raise my fuel taxes? According to Otter's flunky at the tax commission, corporations from out of state, which hire accountants heavy into tax knowledge, while the Idaho Tax Commission hands out millions in tax cuts can't be bullied. You as a US taxpayer can?
The Statesman isn't on top of the news, even when it's handed to them. They print stories about waste & hidden charges, stories handed to them by the AP, Washington Post, New York Times, & others, but all the Statesman can dig up is news about Larry Craig while suggesting corrupt government is working as designed even though we have trillions in debt proving otherwise? Why wouldn't the Statesman print a story about waste while promoting a tax increase?
The Statesman has printed news about hidden costs, $965 per adult every year by credit card companies, then prints about the bill Obama is pushing, credit card reform, & then supports the need to raise taxes through fuel as Otter wants. Otter wouldn't do anything about a contributor robbing US blind at a local dairy? If the Statesman can't find a story in this they aren't in the news business except to print stories handed down from real news outlets.
The Statesman recently printed a couple articles, our view about a couple guys urinating on a guy sleeping, suggest people do the right thing & report it. The second by Hoffman I believe, about insurance fraud & it's costing each of us $950 a year in added costs to offset. We should report these, realize costs created by, & not partake? I reported & got burned & the Statesan wouldn't print any of it. Why would anyone report anything when the same paper that suggest we do, won't back up the person willing to go out on a limb? Stan Howland did & look wher ethat ended up?
Another article by Ed Lotterman Administration, protesters delusional. Can't hand out tax cuts & maintain America? How is it corporations can hand over millions to representatives in return for billions, our representatives get elected through that campaign finance, lobbyist shoot down any effort by anyone in DC to correct problems, & a newspaper not only print these things but turn around & support raising taxes on the people who are the last chance this country has of getting back on our feet?
How do our representatives contradict themselves every time they open their mouth & the paper support them by cutting our throat in every decision they make? We have trillions in debt proving the system they support doesn't work! The people even buy into it. The last presidential election had individuals contributing millions that could have gone to roads & school, cities are hiring lobbyist to get our own tax $!?
Our political system is corrupt & rotten as the milk we used to deliver from Darigold. We don't need to raise fuel taxes to pay for roads, we need to fix this lie we call representation.