22 February 2004Who's gonna drive you home?When Governor Schwarzenegger moved to roll back California's motor-vehicle license fees, prompting the usual suspects to challenge the move in court, the city of Berkeley calculated that it would lose $1.3 million, and decided there had to be another way to pry money out of the owners of those hateful belching machines. What they came up with was a tax on owners of multiple cars. The amount has yet to be determined Councilman Kriss Worthington, who owns no cars, says the "outer edge" might be $1000 and there's some doubt as to how it could be implemented in the first place, but details like that won't stop Mayor Tom Bates:
If we had the option, we'd do it in a heartbeat. We feel cars are a luxury that is expensive for the community.
Meanwhile, across the Bay, Assemblyman Mark Leno has proposed a measure to return the license fee in San Francisco to pre-Schwarzenegger levels. Personally, I think that if San Francisco needs an infusion of cash, they should just increase the current $82 marriage-license fee to maybe, oh, $1000 at the "outer edge." I've been amused by the bay area wackos for decades, but the way things are going now, real depression is starting to set in. Posted by: Interested-Participant at 5:50 AM on 23 February 2004I'm rooting for the San Andreas, myself. Posted by: McGehee at 8:19 AM on 23 February 2004 |