Anti gas-tax ads released

Posted at 4:14 PM on April 28, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

The Republicans unleashed a round of gas tax ads against DFLers today.

Here's one:

House Republican boss Marty Seifert says the GOP hopes to show the ads on SuperAmerica video screens on their pumps, which should come as a surprise to SuperAmerica since they don't have video screens at their pumps.

Now will someone please go fill the gaping holes on I-694 in the Oakdale area?

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Comments (4)

I both admire and hate this ad at the same time. It is well constructed to mislead without being untrue. It isn't much of a leap to go from "raising the gas tax by 42%" to "raising gas prices by 42%" and the recent spike in gas prices makes that plausible.

I hope Minnesota is smart enough to see through the ad, but I'm sure some people will be left thinking that the recent hike in gas prices is solely due to the gas tax increase.

I guess I don't understand why the Republican party has to run a misleading ad on this issue. Wouldn't saying "we didn't think raising the gas tax while gas prices are so high was a good idea" enough?

Posted by brian | April 29, 2008 8:15 AM

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There should probably be a * next to the 42% with "since 1986" in small print.

But political ad-writing is all about misleading people without actually lying in order to do it.

Posted by Bob Collins | April 29, 2008 9:04 AM

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The Republicans have a point. The only reason the DFL raised taxes is because taxes had not beer raised in a long time.

The DFL believes that taxes must rise, because well, taxes must rise.

The fact is that revenues increased for twenty years despite the tax rate remaining the same. I believe in only one year in the last 22, gasoline revenues failed to rise........I guess that sent the DFL into a panic.

Posted by GregS | April 29, 2008 11:24 AM

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//The DFL believes that taxes must rise, because well, taxes must rise.

I think there's a debate to be had over whether the DFL loves taxes or not but the statement here is not encouraging to a well-informed debate. It's a good POLITICAL debate, perhaps, but it doesn't really lead to a good public POLICY debate.

The underlying problem with the transportation system in Minnesota is that it's constitutionally funded in the first place.

The fact is also that we have expanded our infrastructure significantly and there's the question of whether we can afford to? If we only had the infrastructure we had in 1986, then maybe a funding mechanism geared toward 1986 is sufficient. But as you build out an infrastructure, don't you automatically build in additional costs just to maintain it?

At the same time we talk about the need to be more business friendly. So when Marvin Windows wants a better highway out of Warroad, do we build it? How?

There are, as usual, good points on both sides of the issue but, also as usual, both political parties present arguments that can be distilled to 15 second ads or postcard-sized fliers. Good for politics, lousy for intellectual stimulation.

Posted by Bob Collins | April 29, 2008 12:44 PM

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