The Observer Newspapers | Virginia Senate Democrats Fail First Test

July 4, 2008

Virginia Senate Democrats Fail First Test

To the editor:

The news said it all last week about our new majority leadership in Virginia. Veteran senators Dick Saslaw (D-35) and Janet Howell (D-32), both from the Northern Virginia area, looked to the vulnerable and struggling working class to pay the transportation bill to improve our roads.

Both took exceptionable pride in their 6-cent increase in gasoline tax on an already historically high price per gallon of gas. How can taxing our working class further build and maintain roads? Senator Saslaw's explaination that he is going after out-of-state drivers is hogwash, much like Gov. Tim Kaine's piggy-back amendment last year that made out-of-state drivers immune to paying a penalty tax for traffic violations.Somehow I think our majority leadership is off track and more interested in reaching deeper into the pockets of the working class.

The Virginia Senate had and lost an opportunity to show Virginians a way to pay for road improvements without a continued fleecing of our working poor. Instead they go right to the jugular and tax gasoline.How creative is this or this just another example of knee-jerk taxing by Virginia Democrats?

This year everyone should be mindful of well-intended politicians who promise everything and tax the working class. When our Senate majority can do the right thing, they might come up with the right solution.Doing the right thing is not finger-pointing but perhaps fixing the Virginia Department of Transportation is a start.

Philip Jones

Herndon