How not to fund transit

Philadelphia PA - An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer relates some of the latest attempt to save transit by Pennsylvania's tax and spend Governor, "Fast Eddie" Rendell.

In the Governor's proposal, he wants to tax oil producers to raise money for transit. In his Liberal mind, taxing the greedy oil companies directly will save Pennsylvania residents money. Wrong again Fast Eddie. All it will do is increase prices to the public through higher prices at the pump and those higher wholesale prices will adversely effect all the public transit systems that will have to automatically pay 6% more for their fuel if the proposal goes through.

In short, whatever money the state gets from the proposed oil company tax will be offset by higher prices to the end user. All this proposal will do is create paperwork and waste money.
The Governor also proposes raising taxes on items such as cigarettes and cigars to help fund transit while at the same time trying to get people to stop smoking. Yeah, that'll work well.

Fast Eddie's plan to save transit is doomed to fail. As a Liberal politician, his mind can't grasp the fact that the money he thinks will come in, won't. The oil company tax will simply be passed on to consumers, including the cash strapped transit systems, and his other tax increases he is proposing is focused on a dwindling number of residents who use those products. Raise the tax and less will use it so where will all the money come from to bail out the transit systems?

In the end, Pennsylvania residents will suffer through paying more and the windfall of money Fast Eddie expects to fill the State's coffers won't materialize. Funding promised to transit systems won't materialize either as the expected money from oil company taxes will just be passed on to the public and transit systems and the other taxes are on unstable sources that are drying up.