Gas Tax Proposal Demonstates Democrats Lack of Leadership

In an editorial in today’s paper the Des Moines Register has endorsed an increase in the gas tax. This should come as no surprise, after all many of us realize that The Register is nothing more than the Iowa Democrat Party’s propaganda mill. Unfortunately the paper has far too much credibility in among the lesser informed residents in Iowa. The basic presumption that The Register makes in the editorial is that the state would be better off in the short term and the long term if our state legislators pass the tax increase.

During this current economic instability the IDP propaganda machine (The Des Moines Register) is doing everything that it can to promote the disastrous policies and ideas born of the Democratic leadership. Throughout the story the paper makes assumptions that apply to only a small portion of the Iowa populace. Assumptions such as the citizen’s of Iowa only travel 15,000 miles per year. I can point out friends, family, and acquaintances that would love to keep their travel distance at that number or below. In actuality the majority of the people that I know must generally accumulate many more miles than that. Some people that I know have accumulated approximately 40,000 miles between two vehicles.

The Register trumpets the fact that they only want to increase the gas tax an additional 8 cents per gallon. What they fail to mention is that even though the proposed increase is indeed small it would hit individuals that can least afford it the hardest. Those that are on fixed incomes or simply earning minimum wage would be devastated by this increase. For individuals that are earning the minimum wage they would most likely have to choose between purchasing gas so that they can go to work or purchasing food to put on their tables. They would be caught between a rock and a hard place, kind of a damned if you do or damned if you don’t kind of scenario. On the one hand if these individuals decide to put gas in their tank so that they can go to work they would be taking food off their table. On the other hand if they choose food over gas they run the risk of not being able to go to work. But of course I would not expect one of the editors of the paper to think of that as they sit upon the ivory tower that they occupy in Des Moines.

The Democrats controlling Iowa’s government have a fundamental flaw in their thought processes. They lack the creativity to develop common sense solutions to the problems facing the state whether it is a budget deficit or in this case crumbling state infrastructure. Their solutions to most problems are to throw more money at it rather than developing workable solutions that do not harm Iowa’s troubled economy or safety. The state does not suffer from a revenue shortfall; instead what it suffers from is chronic overspending. If they were to get the unnecessary spending in check I believe that they would find that there is an ample supply of funds to maintain the necessary and vital functions that is at the heart of the government’s purpose. Furthermore, editorials like the one in today’s Register do nothing to advocate for strong effective leadership. Instead it enables inept politicians and government employees at all levels to get away with an effective fleecing of Iowa’s taxpayers.