Kaine Should Try Alternate Route To Transportation Financing

And it's just as reasonable to argue that all Virginians should pay to ease congestion in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, because the economic engines of those two areas support the rest of the state.

Finally, it's fair to make those who use the roads pay extra to help finance transportation fixes. That means raising the gas tax, not the sales tax, which lands most squarely on those who can least afford it. Gas is so much cheaper in Virginia than in Maryland or the District that I and many others regularly cross the river to buy it. By raising the gas tax for the first time since 1986, Kaine could make a real dent in the congestion problem and still maintain Virginia's price advantage over neighboring jurisdictions.

The governor is traveling the state, arguing that, as he said in Woodbridge on Tuesday night, "There are rules of math, and there's no free lunch." To ease traffic, you have to pay up.

True enough, but the governor's decision to call a special session of the legislature to flog pretty much the same plan that failed in 2002 doesn't begin to solve the problem of how to pay for that lunch.

The political reality is that Kaine's Republican opponents are going to reject anything he proposes. So rather than treat the voters as idiot children who made a mistake in 2002, why not go for a package that gets serious about making developers pay for the cost of new home-building, raises the gas tax to force commuters to pay for their decisions about where to live, and requires all Virginians to pay a fair share for infrastructure in the state's economic power center?

Join me at noon today for "Potomac Confidential" athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.