California motorists are living with the 12 cent gas tax passed by the legislature last year to fix the state’s roads and bridges. A lot of taxpayers are outraged to find that once again their pockets are being picked to pay for improvements that , if history is any guide, will never reach completion.
Michael Quigley, executive director of the big labor-backed California Alliance for Jobs, says his group is backing Prop 69, which would change the state constitution to keep lawmakers from diverting any of the gas tax’s $5.2 billion annual take from its intended purpose.
“We ultimately agree that, ‘Yes there have been past raids on transportation money.’ We don’t ever want to see that happen again. We are dedicated toward protecting this money and making sure it goes exclusively to its intended purpose.”
Doug McIntyre says the gas tax, officially known as Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 (SB1), is another in a long list of raids on taxpayer bank accounts that are looking more and more like a pattern of large-scale swindling by the state.
“We’re hundreds of billions of dollars in debt because haven’t funded the CalPERS program (state employee retirement fund). The ‘answer’ is to keep coming back for more and more and more money from select audiences. It’s infuriating. And the bottom line is with all this money that we spent beyond our budgets with deficits, nobody is happy with anything!”
Michael Quigley was a guest on McIntyre in the Morning.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News