VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL (10/14) The Gas Tax Lie, Vote Yes on Question #1

Question #1 on the November ballot asks voters to overturn the legislature’s cowardly move to perpetually raise the gas tax without ever having to take another vote or be held accountable to the taxpayers.

A YES vote on Question #1 would repeal the legislature’s action and stop the automatic gas tax hikes.

According to the media and the Democrats on Beacon Hill, a NO vote would allow the legislature’s actions to stand and would “index” the gas tax to inflation.

But that is a lie.

It’s not spin, it’s not rhetoric, it’s an outright lie.

Saying that the gas tax will be indexed to inflation misleads voters to think that when inflation goes up the gas tax will go up, and when inflation goes down the gas tax will also go down.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

What Democrats on Beacon Hill are doing once again, is manipulating the voters with tricky language. The truth is that while your gas taxes will increase when inflation goes up, what they are not telling you is that the gas tax will not go down as inflation goes down.

That means the gas tax is NOT indexed to inflation. It will be in a perpetual mode of increase.

We believe first of all, that you should vote yes on Question #1, and roll back the automatic gas tax increase. If the legislature wants to keep raising taxes let them take a vote each year so that the voters can hold them accountable at election time.

What we also believe is that the media and the Democratic Party in MA needs to start telling the truth. Their deceptive claims that the gas tax is “indexed to inflation” should not go uncorrected and should certainly not go unpunished.

The other lie being told about the gas tax and Question #1 is that the money the state raises in gas taxes will be earmarked to fix roads and bridges that are in serious disrepair.

We have heard that lie before too.

A few years ago the Massachusetts legislature said that raising the cigarette tax would help fund health care for those with lung problems as the result of years of smoking.

Within a year, the Democrat run legislature took all that cigarette tax revenue and put it into the state’s general fund so they could waste it on more social programs to buy votes at election time.

We wonder when the taxpayers and voters of Massachusetts will finally say enough is enough?

The recent spate of audits conducted by State Auditor Suzanne Bump (a Democrat) shows that every facet of state government has millions if not billions in waste fraud and abuse with no accountability. She exposed the fact that the state’s Welfare cash card program (called EBT) had millions of dollars walk out the door with no documentation as to who received those benefits. She exposed the fact that the Social Security, the foster care program, the MBTA and other state agencies were responsible for millions of our tax dollars walking out the door with no way to account for who received the money.

Given all of this we find it irresponsible to give the dishonest mob on Beacon Hill another penny in taxes until they can learn to spend more responsibly and put systems in place to stop the rampant corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse.

Voting YES on Question 1 will not solve all these problems but it will send a very strong message to the liars on Beacon Hill that they cannot fool the voters about these issues.

Vote YES on Question 1.