Your Stupid Political Policy News of the Day: Virginia Punishes Hybrid Owners

I’m posting this up here mostly because I want to see if anyone around these parts wants to defend it.  Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is considered one of the up-and-coming possible Republican Presidential or VP candidates in 2016 or 2020, so this is a chance for OC Republicans to curry favor with him when he needs it most, because this seems like the work of an absolute dillweed:

Hybrid and electric car owners circled the Virginia Capitol to protest a $100 yearly fee that would be placed on their vehicles if Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation plan passes.

On Thursday, a Senate committee reviewed the $3.1 billion transportation package that would eliminate the state’s gas tax and impose the $100 fee.

McDonnell called the fee on alternative fuel vehicles a substitute for losses in the federal gas tax when he appeared on WTOP’s “Ask the Governor” showthis week.

“It’s meant to compensate for the federal gas tax that those vehicles do not pay,” he said.

Click on the link to read the rest.  The sound you hear is that of my mind boggling.

Prudence the Prius

Virginia goes gunning for the tax-avoiding relatives of Prudence the Prius.

Embrace this energy policy or denounce it, OC Republicans; from my standpoint we alternative fuel advocates win either way, because embracing it is dumb politics and even dumber policy. Does anyone out there want to argue that this is a good idea?  Bring it on!

The photo is of our family’s late lamented Prius, “Prudence,” best known for eliciting the question “is that light green or light blue or something else?”  She made commuting from Brea to Irvine more tolerable.  Clearly, early adopters of such technology are enemies of the state.


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)