Washington State Democrats CONTINUE to rip us off on the gas tax theft: 31 more projects face the axe.

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About 60 seconds after the gas tax package passed, WADOT whacked 30% or so of the project list, having known in advance that dozens of the promised projects would not be built.

They lied to us... and they knew it. In advance. They knew when we took the vote that many of these projects would disappear, and that the much more gullible among us and their useful idiots, the newspapers, would actually support this extortion.

Well, in continuing their rampant fraud, the democrats on the Senate Transportation Committee, Chaired by Mary Margaret Haugen, have made the decision to whack and additional 31 projects PROMISED TO THE VOTERS off the project list... and 19 other projects "outside outside the budget horizon as of last year’s supplemental transportation budget, officials said."

We're told:

The Senate plan also continues paying for about 400 other projects, but the original 16-year gas tax-financed construction plan is now short about $6 billion, due to dropping tax revenue and construction cost inflation, officials said.

That means the money for new projects is now projected to run out in 2015, putting 31 more planned highway projects on a list to be “delayed” pending a new source of money.

“You’ll see in this budget, we’re not able to fully fund any new transportation construction after 2015,” Haugen said.

Examples of the newly shuttered projects were transit and car pool lane improvements to Interstate 90 between Seattle and Bellevue, and a proposed “cross-base” highway in the Tacoma area. That list could change in the future, though, transportation leaders said.
Underlying the newly delayed projects are another 19 that won’t be built before money from the nickel and 9.5-cent gas-tax plans expire. Those 19 projects were outside the budget horizon as of last year’s supplemental transportation budget, officials said.

Odd, isn't it, that apparently the concepts of "...dropping tax revenue and construction cost inflation..." were unknown to those lying to us about all the wonderful benefits we would receive as a result of this rip off. Truthful and ethical planners would have factored these two strange new aspects of fiscal planning into the package and TOLD US THE TRUTH.

But that would have, again, required trust on the part of those who would govern us, and an innate belief that THEIR judgment is NOT superior to ours, and does not supersede ours.

Clearly, like the major tax increase we have confronting us soon, these scum wouldn't know the truth if it bit them in the ass.

Remember this when they come around again real soon, and tell us we have to vote for this, and they REALLY had "no choice" but to screw us.

I'LL believe them... won't you?

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State Senate releases transportation plan

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 7:16 PM PDT

By Curt Woodward
The Associated Press

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OLYMPIA — State senators unveiled a $4.3 billion transportation plan Wednesday that would continue paying for several of the state’s highway mega-projects and purchase four ferries while shelving 31 projects that rely on dwindling gas tax revenue.

The Senate’s Democratic and Republican transportation leaders also called for a study of new ways to bankroll highways, bridges and ferries in the future, as high-efficiency cars and periodically high pump prices drive down state gas tax collections. Various kinds of tolling seemed to be early favorites.

Under the Senate’s proposed transportation budget, a half-dozen major highway projects would continue drawing money based on the project list developed last year. They include the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, the State Route 520 bridge over Lake Washington, and the State Route 395 North Spokane Corridor.

Some of the policy details of those mega-projects still aren’t settled. For instance, the earthquake-damaged viaduct may be replaced by a tunnel, but that decision still hasn’t been totally finalized. What exactly to do about the 520 bridge is still not fully resolved.

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