Going down the hard road, again...

If you spend much time driving in or through the bordering counties, it doesn't take long to develop an appreciation for our Wayne County roads. Most people understand that quality roads need adequate funding to be both built and maintained. It is reasonable, I believe, to expect that people who use the roads should pay for their construction and maintainence. Everytime you buy a gallon of gas in Indiana, you pay over 52 cents in road use taxes to do just that.

You would think that charging 52 cents on every gallon of gas that is sold would be sufficient to build and maintain our roads, and maybe it would, if the government actually spent all of the money on the roads. Unfortunately, federal, state, and local governments spend our road use taxes on a myriad of projects unrelated to roads. They manage to spend billions of dollars on everything from hiking trails, to horse trails, to museums, to government pensions.

A proposal is being introduced this week to the Wayne County Council by the Wayne County Commissioners to adopt a new Wheel Tax to add to that 52 cents you're already paying.

Now, maybe 52 cents per gallon isn't enough to pay for our roads, but why don't we give it a try before we allow the government to add yet another road use tax. Who knows where that money might end up, anyway?