Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Tax Idea is Garbage

Woe is me. We never seem to have enough money to repair the city streets. Now the Eugene City Council is considering a 5 percent tax on trash collection within the city limits.
What does trash collecting have to do with street repair you might ask? Well it seems in the council's infinite wisdom, garbage trucks are heavy therefore they cause more wear and tear on our streets. While that may be slightly true, what about fire engines, buses, gravel trucks, etc. don't they all cause about the same wear on the streets?
Garbage companies are not in the tax collecting business but it seems the government is in the garbage dispensing business. This is just another example of government unfairly singling out one activity they think they can tax without too much complaint just like taxing smokers to fund children's health care.
There isn't enough money in the budget for street repair but there is enough for a new city hall and police station. I don't get it.

3 comments:

Robin said...

actually it is fitting when you think about it.

The city can't run on a budget and so they feed us garbage in order to try and get more money from us, because of course, we are all wealthy and they want it.

all kidding aside, what would be get for our 5%? road projects like the one that they have made a career at on I-5?

do we need a new police station or usable roads?

Never mind that we are at 12.1% unemployment in Oregon and higher in Lane County, just keep those taxes coming.

Bobkatt said...

Yep, it appears that they have another career project. They are tearing up Roosevelt from Maple to Beltline and it seems to me that it is much like last years Roosevelt "Big Dig" from Chambers to Maple that took 3 months. Again Roosevelt was not in that bad of shape to begin with.

Robin said...

Last year I worked in North Dakota and I94 a major freeway near Dickinson they tore up a 15 mile section of the free way for repair.

They took this road down to the dirt. recycled the cement, and completed the work in 3 months.

sigh. if only Oregon could do that.