One of the ways being proposed at the statehouse to meet their budget is to take $50 million dollars from the Road Use Tax Fund to fund some of the operations of the State Police. Currently the State Police is funded out of the General Fund of the state. This is a way to "cut" the General Fund by $50 million.
The Road Use Tax Fund comes right from your gas tax. Now I am not a big fan of taxes, but the gas tax is not something that particularly bothers me. It is in a sense, a user fee. You drive a car, you drive on a road, you buy gas, you pay a tax that goes for road maintenance. You sit at home, you play video games, you don't use the road, you don't pay gas tax. Pretty fair, as far as taxes go. And the gas tax is specifically designated to road repair and construction.
So some in Des Moines are proposing, because of their previous reckless spending on expanding government, that the Road Use Tax go to paying for the State Police. How does that affect you in Roland? If that plan were to pass, Roland would lose $5,640.00 in road money. That is money we have planned for road improvement in town--with next up being the street just north of the middle school, and the 100th block of Logan.
So in essence, because of who gets elected to Des Moines, they in essence pass the buck onto city councils across Iowa. Our city council will then have to make a choice-cut road construction, or raise property tax. So instead of certain elected officials in DSM making the tough choices, the Roland City Council has to be the bad guys. Nice.
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