LETTERS: Fix roads, fix roads, fix roads

Time to raise gas tax to fix crumbling roads hit by storm

To the editor:

Time to raise the gas tax to fix the highway rain damage and keep it on to fix what is needed in South Carolina. We now need a real 10-year rebuilding program instead of the year-to-year folly engaged in by our legislators.

Earmark a fixed portion of the new tax stream (emergency gas tax increase, usage or mileage fees, gross vehicle weight) to finance the decade-long road rebuilding program (exclude new roads that are not now in construction as we do not need that now). Get rid of the infrastructure bank and finance the rebuilding through the executive branch. Make the governor responsible for progress or lack of it.

For sure, forget Haley’s quid pro quo tax exchange idea. It was dumb then and even dumber now.

— Fred Palm, Edisto Island, S.C.

General Assembly needs to wake up to real needs

To the editor:

I would hope that the recent flooding in our fair state will be the clarion call for the General Assembly to do what it should have done two sessions ago:  increase the user tax (fuel tax) on our roads and bridges to provide adequate resources to do what needs to be done.  This allows us to pass off some of those costs to tourists, visitors and truckers who buy fuel and pass through our state.  It is far more efficient and less demanding of our citizens than some of the other schemes that have been placed on the table.

Don’t cut taxes somewhere else. Don’t give a tax break to upper-income residents and pass it off as a general tax cut.  Just do what needs to be done and increase the fuel tax by at least 20 cents.  I would suggest tying the tax to inflation so you don’t have to go through the apparent agony of a tax increase whenever it is needed.  I realize that adequate maintenance would not have precluded much of the damage done by the floods.  But perhaps it could have ameliorated some of it and perhaps the damage will provide enough focus on the matter so that, if we have to repair the damage anyway, we can do it right with the right resources at hand.

I wish our General Assembly would do three things this session:

1. Pass ethics legislation that is meaningful and eliminates the fox watching the hen house.
2. Increase the tax on fuel to a level that allows adequate maintenance of our roads and bridges with no other sleight of hand to accompany the increase.
3. After 22 years of deliberation, fix our education system so each child has an equal chance to succeed no matter where their parents live.

How much more pleasant our state would be if we would meaningfully address these three issues  Is this too great a challenge to ask of our legislators?  If it is, then, I strongly suggest we consider alternatives during our next election cycle.

We can only blame ourselves if we continue to send the same incumbents back time and again and also expect things to change.  These matters have been festering for years.  It is  past time to fix them.  Our people are becoming impatient.

— Sam Griswold, Columbia, S.C.

Have sunset provision for any gas tax hike

To the editor:

I think any increase should have a sundown provision so we don’t go on forever and ever but just have it for the time the funds are needed.

— Mary Heatherly, Spartanburg, S.C.

Billboards pushing third way now in S.C.

To the editor:

Saw your article on the voters in the middle having few good choices. [Brack, Voters in middle bumfuzzled by shoddy choices.]

Thought you might be interested to learn that the attached (at right) will appear on 13 billboards in the Midlands beginning next Thursday and run for at least a month. Other images will appear on additional billboards later in October.

My experience has been that the “middle” is alive and well and getting increasingly frustrated. How that all plays out will be “interesting,” as Tom Davis suggests!

— Jim Rex, Fairfield County, S.C.

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