Spank That Donkey

I joked in an earlier post about Jimmy Hoffa not being killed but instead moving to Chile, where he organized a truckers strike against that Federal Government for relief from high gas taxes.  I am going to reprint this because I think it is so illustrative of road taxes, and how they effect the national economy, private industry, and every day people.

My premise is that the Chilean gas tax system is done on a percentage basis whereby as fuel prices tripled so did the taxes imposed on the fuel.  Thereby, the Government experienced a windfall in tax collection due to the increased cost of the product.  That is why rebating 80% of the fuel tax to the truckers was probably revenue neutral for the government to build the roads, as opposed to our system, whereby we have a fixed tax per gallon of fuel.

Consider this and please visit the link and evaluate it as we enter into the special Transportation General Assembly session here in Virginia.  Let me also add that Chilean Truckers are probably independent, or owner operators as we call them here in the USA.  The most interesting feature of my first two trips to Chile was the number of privately owned buses.  Yes, each bus was owner operated.  A guy would stand in the street and direct them to the passengers for a fee.

Wild concept you say?  I do not know this for a fact, but I surmise that same situation is the case in Chile for freight trucks, because in the four trips there, I have never noticed any dominate trucking companies names on the sides of the trucks like you notice, JB Hunt, Schneider, CR England, etc here in the USA.  Hence the union to give them leverage in the Chilean Congress.

 Prost to Chile!)

 Maybe the Mob really just chased Jimmy Hoffa to Chile. Check out this story, "Chile Govt. Reaches Compromise with Trucking Industry", excerpt:

On the third day of the strike that put 6,000 trucks off the highways, Transportation Minister René Cortázar led round-table negotiations Thursday evening with seven trucking union directors, including CNDC President Juan Araya, to reach an agreement on fuel tax relief. To strike a deal, the government agreed to kick back 80 percent of the fuel taxes now paid by truckers. Initially, the government proposed a 25 percent reimbursement, then a 50 percent reimbursement.

After several tense hours and at least four different offers, Cortázar raised his offer to an 80 percent return on truckers' fuel taxes. Near 2 a.m. Friday morning, Araya finally compromised and called off the strike.

Remember just a couple months ago independent truckers tried to organize a one week strike in America to protest the high cost of diesel.... They couldn't pull it off because they lack the organization and our economy is probably too big to pull this off.  Chile is a nation 30 to 40 miles wide (literally), and over 3,000 miles long.  The primary economy is located around Santiago and Valparaiso the major port, and all within an hour and a half drive.

Notice who the strike was against though... not the oil companies, not some big mean low wage paying company... no Chile has a thriving free market economy.... the strike was against the high fuel taxes levied by the government!

Talk about forcing a tax holiday on the Federal Government... well it happened.. because the truckers needed a break, and the citizens know who ends up paying for higher fuel prices, and the associated taxes... Them!

Rut Ro Rickey!  There's more, what else did the citizens say?:

“What happens with all the drivers that also use their car every day to go to work?” Zaldívar asked. El Mercurio's survey of 600 residents in greater Santiago found that 83.5 percent of participants said the same tax relief should be extended to taxis, and 82.3 percent said buses should get the same rights, too. Over three-fourths said the tax rebate should even extend to certain passenger vehicles.

This looks like it needs more research, but apparently the gas tax is set on a percentage of the fuel price, and not per gallon like the Federal and State gas taxes here in the USA...  My God, if our taxes were the same way with some tax-a-holics attitudes, the Feds and states will be wishing for a percentage too!

If that were the case, we'd never get to drill in ANWR or offshore... It would drive down the price of fuel, and the resulting gas tax collections.  Like our ever tax hungry pols, would ever go for that!

(I thought a former Ms. Va might get your attention)  This advance in technology is what has wrought us such a huge Federal Government.  Seriously, you're still concentrating on why government has gotten out of control right?

Now just this morning I admit to intentionally standing in the Sheets Walk In Beer Cooler this am for five minutes, just letting them big four fans blow down on me...  but I did eventually go to work, unlike many of our Congressman.

Meanwhile in Chile... yes Chile, Valle Nevado Chile.  Click on the live web cam top right corner two over from the flags, (not as effective if you read this tonight).  Look at that snow... June is their March..November. Al Gore your answer to global warming is just a lift ticket away.

 Taking a look at Augusta County's returns there are three overwhelming factors involved in the numbers.  The first is that the local MSM didn't spare any ink letting the local populace know that Senator John Warner, the former Governors, LG, AG, etc endorsed Senator John McCain.

Secondly, beyond numerous phone calls from the candidates, and radio ads condensed into a five day window the electorate really didn't get a decent amount of time to look at the candidates.  I think that if the county had a couple weeks worth of exposure to the candidates, and a couple issue comparison pieces to study you would see a far wider of margin for Gov. Huckabee.

The ballot had six candidates, which fractured the vote further, and Rush Limbaugh pounding the snot out of Gov.  Huckabee for two months straight made a huge difference.  Still the County went Huckabee, plain and simple.  Twenty Six out of Twenty Six precincts. 

In my opinion the largest factor was the Top GOP Leadership giving McCain the 'green light', and they just voted the name, and surely not his positions.

Overall, when I saw that the county was  not 3-1 Huckabee, I knew he was sunk state wide.  Like I said in a previous post, GOP Leadership knew that McCain was going to be vindictive towards our state, and Senate candidate former Gov. Jim Gilmore in particular if they didn't all get behind him, they made the move, and here we are.

The bottom line of course is that if not for all of the above, and Senator John McCain's true voting record were laid out before our electorate,  he would have gotten the three to one trouncing he deserved.