{"id":3205,"date":"2019-03-08T08:19:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T13:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3205"},"modified":"2019-03-08T08:27:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T13:27:19","slug":"raise-the-gas-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3205","title":{"rendered":"Raise the Gas Tax?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"410\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/JPA178.jpg\" alt=\"Raise the Gas Tax?!\" class=\"wp-image-3206\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/JPA178.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/JPA178-300x220.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>One  of my pet peeves is when somebody with a good paying, white collar job  chooses a ginormous pickup truck for their commuter vehicle and then  complains bitterly when the price of gas goes up. The world is not  conspiring against you, Karen! You made your choice\u00a0\u2014 deal with the  consequences!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So  when Governor Whitmer floated the idea this week of raising the gas  tax, I imagined that the Karens of Michigan were going to be quite put  out. A brief workplace and online sampling confirmed this. To be clear, I  don&#8217;t begrudge those on fixed incomes or with lives that require a  pickup truck for not being happy with potentially higher gas prices.  Taxes with such a direct and obvious economic impact are especially unlikable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To  that end, I&#8217;m guessing our Michigan-based automakers are not terribly  thrilled with the gas tax idea. All three have now clearly gone all in on a pickup\/SUV future. It&#8217;ll be interesting to see if they weigh in on  what they would perceive as a more fair revenue source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But  that leaves us with the question of what would be more &#8220;fair.&#8221; We&#8217;ll  find out soon enough as Whitmer negotiates the budget with the  Legislature. Initial reactions from Republicans have been positive.  They&#8217;re leery of such a large gas tax and expressing displeasure with potential adjustments to corporate taxes. But nobody is denying that our  roads have been neglected for so long that significant spending will be  required to fix them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No tax is ever completely fair. But whatever gets negotiated should be as  evenhanded as possible. So for those hybrid and electric vehicle owners  who are a little too satisfied with sticking it to the gas guzzlers: You won&#8217;t get off so easy, Chad! We&#8217;re all expecting you to pay for fixing  the roads, too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my pet peeves is when somebody with a good paying, white collar job chooses a ginormous pickup truck for their commuter vehicle and then complains bitterly when the price of gas goes up. The world is not conspiring against you, Karen! You made your choice\u00a0\u2014 deal with the consequences! So when Governor Whitmer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrewheller-com","category-editorial-cartoon","category-michiganpress-org","category-michiganradio-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3209,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}