Hemp plants photographed at Holtkamp Greenhouse
Hey, do you have any chips? Do you want any chips? Sometimes I’m just like Cookie Monster with the chips. Nom nom nom nom.
Last week, Gov. Bill Lee announced he has big plans to address the state’s transportation issues by dumping money ...
Hold on, is that "Truckin’" by the Grateful Dead? Turn it up! I always thought Willie Nelson could do a cool cover of that.
Oh, man, sorry. OK, let’s just focus on this post. Me on writing it. You on reading it. Did you see where I set the lighter down?
So, yeah, Gov. Lee wants to fix our transportation infrastructure. Good ol’ One-Note Lee wants to privatize urban interstate improvements — like toll lanes and more lanes. No word on if the private partner will be using road plans developed at a small fanatical college in Michigan by people who hate road crews, but I’m sure we’ll find that out soon enough.
According to this Associated Press report, Lee is “adamant about what he won’t do: Raise the gas tax; add fully tolled roads; or issue debt in lieu of the state’s pay-as-you-go road funding method.” He will, however, raise the tax [cough cough cough], excuse me, “fee” on electric cars from $100 a year to possibly $300 a year.
Last year we had a budget surplus of more than $1 billion, and the federal government is giving us $2.8 billion dollars to use on infrastructure issues, so it’s hard to understand why any fees or tolls — which, let’s face it, are just pseudonyms politicians use for taxes, hoping we won’t recognize them when we see them — would be necessary at all.
But let’s take them at their word for it. We need to fix our roads (which we do), and we can’t afford to fix our roads without some new revenue streams, I guess because we have misplaced the money the feds are sending us or something. Rather than turning our public roads into a two-tiered system of convenience for the haves and inconvenience for the have-nots, or punishing people for ditching gas vehicles, is there some other large pot of money the state is leaving on the table? Hee, hee. “Pot” of money.
Maybe there’s some vice that many Tennesseans indulge in? Oh, hey, listen. You’re going to want to cut that brownie into much, much smaller pieces. Maybe it’s not legal, and thus not taxed here, but has been legalized in other states? Oooh, have you ever noticed how vibrant Nashville Scene editor-in-chief D. Patrick Rodgers' mustache is? Sometimes I just like to sit on the couch and think about it. Does this vice grow easily here and could also serve to provide farmers with additional revenue streams?
Is the solution right in front of our faces, perhaps in a carved-out apple? Or at the least, in a sandwich baggie hidden in the sock drawers of Tennessee’s teenagers?
