Representative Bryan Holloway, 91st District
N. C. House of Representative
State Legislative Building, Room 1409
Raleigh, NC 27601-1096
919-733-5609
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 3, 2006
Greetings! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! As you know, legislative session will not reconvene until May; however, many committee meetings and business continues to press on. As of late, you have probably heard on your local news that the gas tax is increasing with the beginning of the New Year. As your representative, I wanted to explain what is going on, and what may be done.
North Carolina has two taxes on gasoline, one is a fixed tax that does not change and the other is a variable tax. This was set into place years ago, long before I arrived to the General Assembly. After the Katrina crisis, the price of gasoline skyrocketed, as you recall. This increase in price has no affect on the fixed tax that North Carolina imposes, but it forces the variable tax to increase according to North Carolina law. Basically, as the price of gas increases, the variable tax increases.
After the Katrina crisis, many legislators encouraged our leadership and the governor to restructure the gasoline tax laws in North Carolina. With the increase in prices, legislators knew that January would bring a tax increase. The leadership and the governor ignored the call to action, and both exclaimed that the money was too imperative to the highway trust fund for road projects. I challenge this statement, and I am not afraid to tell them they are wrong! In the past four years, the highway trust fund has been raided by more than a billion dollars. It certainly was not raided for education funding at the local level, or for healthcare because both continue to receive cuts. The money is raided to pay for teapot museums like the one currently being built in Sparta, and countless other wasteful uses of tax dollars just like it that do not provide for the good of all North Carolina citizens. Also the governor has more than enough discretionary money appropriated to him from the budget to cover whatever he thinks the state would lose if we discard the new tax; however citizens rarely hear about such funds.
I believe that you know from my past record that I am against the tax increase on gasoline in North Carolina, and I plan to do my part to try and fix it. Since the governor and the leadership continue to ignore the cry of fellow legislators and our citizens, we have acted. Article II, Section 11 of the North Carolina Constitution, states that if 3/5 of the House and Senate petition to return for special session, then the leadership must convene for a special session. The petition has been started, and I have already signed my name to the petition calling for a special session to remove the new gas tax. I just hope other legislators will be responsible and take action. I will be back in May once regular session convenes, or when major happenings occur. Until next time, take care and God bless.
