A fee on top of a toll on top of a tax

Politicians and bureaucrats never cease to amaze me.

They sit around their offices and try to find new ways to squeeze taxpayers.

Motorists already pay a gas tax to the state and federal government (50 cents a gallon in Pennsylvania) and if you want to use the Turnpike you have to pay an additional toll.

Now, the politicians/bureaucrats want to charge motorists an additional fee on top of the toll and the gas tax for the privilege of driving through parts of Pennsylvania.

In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind program, Montgomery County is proposing extra fee to get off and on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Norristown.

The money would be used to cover the estimated $160-million cost of the Lafayette Street project in Norristown.

Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, the free-spending Democrat on the three-member board, calls the hidden tax on motorists an innovative funding proposal.

"This project will not get built unless we have this type of innovative financing," Hoeffel told reporter Margaret Gibbons.

And this should come as no surprise, but Gov. Ed Rendell has a hand in the new fee proposal for motorists.

Hoeffel's comments at Thursday's commissioners' meeting came after a closed-door briefing of Gov. Ed Rendell on the project and the county's funding proposal, Gibbons says.

Commissioners' Chairman James R. Matthews told Gibbons the county has received "word of mouth" opinions from professionals who have told the county they do not believe that the extra fee would deter motorists from using the interchange.

Huh? What exactly is "word of mouth" opinions?

Read the full story, "Proposal: Charge extra fee to help with funding," in today's edition of The Times-Herald.