Been seeing a recent bit of Facebook noise on tolls in the Seattle area. Seems the jackasses in Olympia are bent on charging commuters for using a road that has already been paid for with tax dollars. The idea is that if they can open up a lane or two for commuters to use by charging them a hiked toll rate, they have done some magical thing that addresses the cramped road problems in Western Washington. Somehow it alleviates the congestion of traffic by making the toll road appear to be opened and clear with the exception of a few stray patrons. There’s also talk of charging a tax per mile driven. We have some of the highest fuel taxes and sales taxes in the nation and these jerks can’t figure out how to use that money correctly and now they want more. It’s like they are completely disconnected from Joe public and have no interest in actually helping the situation. Instead they apply bad policy and flawed logic to an already defective system and then want to be re-elected for doing “something”.
I think that sometimes, it’s better to leave a defective system alone until you have properly analyzed it and HAVE A METHOD OF FALLBACK and proper miles stones to identify its success or failure. It’s as if they come up with some crap to try and wouldn’t admit it could be failing, even at gunpoint. They have this idea that they can tax their way into successful management strategies. These tolls are are more of penalty for using the road and ruining the perfect fallacy of more open roads that are magically now available when they somehow weren’t before.
The problem is that a majority of Washington voters are waterlogged-brained Sheep. They vote democrat no matter what because they are told too and it’s easy. They appear to ignore the real issues that are before the publicly voted into office officials. They don’t want real accountability from anyone and the parties that keep getting voted into office are playing the tune that this voting majority thinks they want to hear. I have learned that every condition can reach a point where you must decide if you want to accept the situation, fight it, or leave it.
I’ve tried for many years to accept it and it’s now getting too expensive to accept the situation with having to get from point “A” to “B” for work. The costs of commuting can now eat into living costs to a degree that it’s almost not worth living there anymore. Moving closer to work is even worse than living at a distance and commuting to work isn’t much better because housing prices are out of control. I know people even turn down jobs just because it would mean they would have to pay the tolls to get to work or sit in traffic for long hours every day. When will this stop or are we doomed to let this kind of taxation destroy us? Is it really worth living in a place that appears to be aggressively driving it’s citizens out of the state with ridiculous do nothing taxes?
Rowland Ramble - 