Taxes and Politicians.

Reading The Dead Pelican this morning, it leads me to an article about the proposed gasoline tax that Baton Rouge wants to build a new I-10 bridge over the Mississippi River.

Surprise, surprise the State wants more money from the people. This time around it’s for roads, and the way they expect to receive it is through increasing what we pay to the State in gasoline taxes from 20 cents a gallon to 37.

When we need anything in Louisiana, it seems like our representatives, senators and governor believe the only way to get it is by taxing the people more.
I personally feel as though the brains of the individuals who were elected to represent the rural parishes have been fried in Baton Rouge and they have fallen completely out of touch with reality.

That's the way I feel too, and my state Senator,  James "Jim" Fannin, out of Jonesboro, LA may be the worst of the bunch.  Senator Fannin hails from Jackson Parish, which is a helluva long way from where I live but I live in a gerrymandered district and Fannin really doesn't care if I draw breath.    When you try to call his office, you get an answering machine and that's the end of that conversation.

Belle and I have done a lot of traveling over the past several months, seen a lot of roads.    Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma have better roads than Louisiana, and they manage to have good roads on about the same tax money that Louisiana gets.

Two things piss me off.  Taxes and state senators who won't return phone calls.  James "Jim" Fannin has now had two opportunities to return my phone calls,   I don't expect that he will personally pick up the phone, but his staff has obviously screwed-the-pooch on both occasions.

Taxes is never the answer.  And, having a constituent call a state senator during normal business hours and get am answering machine is never the answer either. James "Jim" Fannin needs to do a whole lot better than he's doing.  A whole helluva lot better.