As for earmarking gas taxes, I hate to break it to you that we have tons of earmarked gasoline sales tax receipts, but it keeps getting redirected to other programs. In fact, it was a deal with Gov. Reagan that earmarked for public transit any gas sales tax windfall in times of increasing gas prices.

Also, cut the generalizations, please. I don’t have a problem with paying more taxes to support California’s infrastructure. I do have a problem with dumping more money down the same rathole we currently use. I would gladly pay a higher gas tax if that gas tax were earmarked for infrastructure maintenance and improvement.

I do have to disagree (don’t I always) about your assessment that our state will never agree to new taxes. That assumption has always been a bit overstated – both California and the US government raised taxes from 1990 to 1993 and it didn’t cause a revolution – and as our economy and infrastructure fall apart around us, polls show consistent support for some sort of tax solution to prevent California from falling apart.

I think the media tends to not do real journalism any more; instead they tend to take a subject or an event and write about whether it conforms with their interpretation of conventional wisdom or not. That turns the media into defenders of the status quo, whether that’s their intent or not. So when you see me pushing hard against your flawed assumptions, that’s what’s behind it. Nothing personal.