The venerable your-tax-dollars-at-work road sign, government’s feeble attempt to counter fire-breathing antitax crusaders and reassure motorists that their money is going to good use, has become cliche and commonplace — visual roadside litter that most of us hardly notice. Not so one Southern California lawmaker.
State Sen. Ling Ling Chang counted the ways she loathes the California Department of Transportation’s latest version of the signs in a scathing recent letter to agency Director Laurie Berman: They reportedly cost 700 bucks each, which is a lot for a sign (even one commissioned by Caltrans). They don’t recount the entire sordid history of California transportation spending, which is also a lot to ask of a sign. And Chang suspects they are designed to “influence public opinion” on Proposition 6, a November ballot measure to repeal last year’s gas tax increase.
The essence of the Los Angeles County Republican’s complaint appears to be that the signs are true. By explicitly linking road work to SB1, the legislation that raised California gas taxes for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, the signs threaten to inform drivers that taxation, unpalatable as it is, pays for needed public services. And that, in turn, will threaten Republicans’ campaign to repeal the tax increase, which relies on the notion that the transportation funding measure is actually a plot to rob taxpayers of their hard-earned money for no particular reason.
Such arguments have served Chang well. Having narrowly lost a state Senate race to Democrat Josh Newman…
