I'm thinking that Sid buys the first round next time http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-indiana-ends-fiscal-year-with-reserves-of-more-than-2-billion-taxpayers-to-receive-refunds-20120703,0,5387328.column
Here's another guy who seems to be getting it right... http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/ohio-surplus-reaches-482m-1400295.html
Two republican governors of slow growth, labor intensive rust-belt states, both generating a surplus for their taxpayers.....coincidence? I think not.... Full disclosure here, Kasich used to be drinking buddy of mine back during his days as a state rep and I a young Columbus banker working across the street from the Capitol...solid, conservative midwestern values who loves his country more than the air he breathes.....good for him.
Sorry guys...those surpluses will only last until the next lib/Dem governor is elected. Here in California, consecutive Republican governors (Wilson and Deukmejian) left office with the greatest surpluses in American history up that time. This "rainy day" fund was several billion dollars. It took lib/Dem governor Gray Davis and his lib/Dem legislature 18 months to burn through all that cash and place the Golden State into a deepening decline that continues to this day. Despite closing state parks, museums, schools and roads, and $16 billion in debt, the lib/Dems continue to spend. Most of the money goes to Cadillac retirement plans for government workers that would make a Greek jealous and a bullet train that will connect the elite liberal areas of the state by 2040 at a cost of between $120-200 billion dollars... BTW- Orange and Riverside Counties stopped taking cash on their empty toll roads last week. From now on, they will only take drivers who buy monthly passes and there aren't many of those. I told you guys that Californians would never accept toll roads and they don't...
The next governor of Indiana will be Republican Mike Pence, at least as conservative as, if not more so than, Daniels.
how the F does a state that still relies on a tourism industry believe that people will purchase a season, monthly or annual pass for the toll highway while giving up on the cash option all together? That just doesn't make any sense at all.
In NJ there are two major roads going north-south; the Turnpike(I-95) and the Garden State Parkway. Both are toll roads. Both generate tons of money.
Texas has several tags but the Austin area developed "TxTag" that works on any toll road in Texas. Apply a TxTag to your windshield and no longer stop at toll booths. You can pay at 80 mph in the main lanes. You also get a 10% discount for using the tag. You go online and attach a bank account or a credit care to replenish the TxTag account. When my TxTag account drops below $15, it charges my bank account $60. We average one replenishent per month. Of course, you can always slow down, gow through the cash lanes, stop and pay 10% more.
This is California, not some place else. Pictures in the LA Times showed bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway next to the empty toll road, just as I had predicted. Now they've fired all the toll booth operators who were never needed in the first place. Toll roads are an insult to all California drivers. We pay the highest gasoline taxes in the nation to pay for these roads and freeways, so why is an additional toll necessary? Where does the money go?
I am probably in a major minority here. I don't mind paying a toll. The majority of Austinites are protesting the toll roads. This makes the toll road my personal highway! There is never a slow down on the toll roads. Let's see... $2.70 to go 40 miles... That's less than $0.07 per mile and it takes 30 minutes to go that distance. 40 miles on i-35 at 16:00 will take you about 2 hours but cost you nothing other than the wasted gas idling on the freeway... oh wait. Gas is not cheap. 1.5 extra hours of stop and go driving will probably use more than a gallon of gas at $3.07 or more. It just became cheaper to get there quicker by driving the toll road. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh don't tell the people of Austin. They probably won't figure that one out. :wink: