OUR VIEW: License plates were an easy mark

Editorials

November 19, 2009

Anonymous The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Thu Nov 19, 2009, 01:18 AM EST

Governments can get away with a lot before the public catches on, but once in a while they get a little too brazen.

Albany legislators got a lesson in that this week after the New York State Association of County Clerks dropped about 100,000 signatures on them, opposing a plan to force all New Yorkers to pay $25 for new vehicle license plates. This, after the state already increased fees associated with vehicle ownership just two months ago.

That all New Yorkers would have to traipse to a DMV branch, stand in line and cough up $25 is enough to get people angry. The clerks rallied against the measure because all those angry motorists would be shooting the messenger, in this case the poor DMV workers who would be forced to collect the fee from an irate public.

It appears as though state lawmakers are backing away from the plan, but rest assured they’ll come up with another less obvious way to take the money.

If it were up to us, we would love to see lawmakers forced into overt extortion to erase the state’s staggering deficit. Maybe if their planned solutions are so odious, the average New Yorker would actually take notice.

What if lawmakers came to every place of employment and held our paychecks ransom?

Or better yet, maybe every legislator should have to go door-to-door in his or her district and simply demand $25 from every man, woman and child. Break open a child’s piggy bank, or rifle the couch cushions.

After all, that was basically what they were trying to do with the license plate fiasco, wasn’t it?

Instead, the $130 million it would have generated will inevitably come from some hidden government surcharge or just get loaded onto an already absurd income tax. What’s another 50 cents a week deducted from a paycheck?

It’s too bad. The least our state leaders could do is have the courage to increase taxes in such a way that people would actually hold them accountable.

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