After saying up until this point in his re-election campaign that he had no plans to raise taxes in a second term, Gov. Mark Dayton said Wednesday night he would propose putting a sales tax on gasoline to raise money for road and bridge projects.The trains will get built. The roads, maybe not so much. Bottineau trumps pothole. It's a better Minnesota, baby!
He floated the idea right at the start of the second debate with his two challengers, Republican Jeff Johnson and Independence Party candidate Hannah Nicollet, when the candidates were asked for specifics about what they would do if elected.
"I'll make a specific proposal that will include a sales tax on gasoline that will raise close to the $6.5 billion that we're short for transportation funding over the next 10 years," the DFLer said.
Meanwhile, the governor issued this howler when the Vikings stadium came up:
Dayton defended the stadium. He said the NFL and Vikings owners threatened to move the team if they didn't get a new stadium. He said he got the best deal for the state.You didn't have to give the Vikings anything, Governor. You chose to. A half billion dollars. Accept it.
"Tell the 7,500 people that are going to be working on this project and are now, 38 percent of whom are men and women of color, that this project is a debacle," Dayton said. "It's easy to sit on the sidelines, having had nothing to do with it, and take potshots. The fact is we didn't dictate this agreement. The Vikings held the upper hand."
Oh, one other thing. No questions about MNSure in the debate. There are certain issues that we simply won't be discussing this year.
5 comments:
The Vikings boondoggle is about race? Oh wait, of course it is. There's an election to be won!
So we paid $500,000,000 so that 7,500 people could get 2 years of employment?
Or will Dayton's second term pledge a stadium built every two years to make sure these people have a paycheck?
I'm glad to see Jeff Johnson's second ad at least brings this up.
Governor JimBeam must be hitting the hooch pretty hard to think he's going to get a gas tax hike sufficient to generate $650 million in revenue annually. With 2.4 billion gallons of the fuel sold annually, that's a tax hike of 27cents/gallon--about a doubling of the state gas tax.
Boy, it's a good thing that the state's two largest population centers aren't both within half an hour's drive of state lines, otherwise you'd think that gas stations in Superior and Hudson would make out like bandits in such a scenario.
Pardon my French, but it's astounding that such a sh**-for-brains ever got a college degree, let alone an Ivy degree and a governorship.
Bubba, good math. That's my post for tomorrow. Appreciate it, good sir!
he should tax cigarettes, instead.
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