As his term comes to an end in uncertain economic times, Gov. Ed Rendell is casting about for any and all tax revenue he can find.
He wants to tax companies extracting gas from Marcellus Shale. He wants to tax oil companies that sell gasoline. And he wants to increase fees for every Pennsylvanian who drives.
Whether taxes on gas and oil should be raised is one thing. Whether fees should be raised for drivers is quite another.
Unequivocally, fees should not be increased for drivers. They are suffering enough.
On Monday, Rendell told state lawmakers that he needs more money for licenses, registration, certificates of title and inspection stickers. He wants to use the proceeds to fix Pennsylvania's ailing roads.
Transportation improvements will cost $1 billion a year, the administration claims, and raising the cost of a driver's license from $21 to $25 and registration from $36 to $49 will help pay a substantial portion of that bill.
This latest of many tax-and-spend proposals is a really bad idea. The 33 percent hike in the cost simply to register a car to drive in Pennsylvania is the worst of all.
At a time when hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians are without jobs or earning less money and struggling to make ends meet, adding a tax burden of this magnitude would be bad policy.
It would tax everyone, regardless of ability to pay, at a time when people have cut back so far in their spending that it will be difficult to find new cuts to make in their budgets.
The lame-duck governor may not care, but such a tax would be highly unpopular with his constituents.
A Franklin & Marshall College poll conducted last May indicated that 60 percent of respondents opposed increasing the state's vehicle registration fee.
No doubt a similar percentage would oppose increased fees for licenses. Not to mention fees for learners' permits. In a fit of tax looniness, the administration proposes to hike the cost of learners' permits from $5 to $18.
You know these fees would not be lowered once the economy rebounds and the state is not so desperate for cash. You know a certificate of title, if raised to $31 from $22.50, would stay at that level.
We understand the state is struggling to meet its obligations because tax revenues are down.
But the answer is not to hike fees but to cut spending in non-essential areas and divert that money into maintenance of highways and bridges.
Drivers are playing plenty in fees right now.
Let the state find some other way to finance its road programs.
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