Delegate David Poisson’s survey

In yesterday’s mail, I received a postcard from Virginia State Delegate David Poisson asking me to complete a small survey. The card had a fold-out that detaches and allows me to mail back my survey answers as a postcard in reply. Nice of him to ask my opinion, eh?

There are 4 questions on the card. The first asks what I feel the most pressing issue is for the 2007 General Assembly to address. This question is just fine because it offers a number of choices that are distinct and separate enough as well as not actually guiding your answer. It’s a great survey question for those reasons.

The second asks what’s the most important thing to be done to improve education in Virginia. This one’s not so good because this question is a very complicated issue and it defies 1-line answers. Choices such as “Provide full-day kindergarten” and “Raise teacher salaries” are all well and good but they raise more questions than they provide answers. Then there’s the choice of “Test students less often” that’s so vague about what it means that it’s not even a practical choice, here.

It’s the 3rd question that gets me. Here’s the text of the question and the choices available:

Most experts believe it will take at least $1 billion a year to make needed transportation improvements. Should the General Assembly

• Take money from the General Fund (currently used for education, health care and public safety).
• Raise tolls and build more toll roads in high-congestion areas.
• Raise the gasoline tax.
• Raise other taxes.
• Contract for roads to be built and owned by private companies.
• Other:__________________

Nice shot with that first choice of an answer, eh? Tell me something, Delegate Poisson: where has the money for transportation come from in the past? Can you say: General Fund? He frames this question in 2 fallacious ways. First, he implies that the General Fund has not collected taxes for the purposes of transportation improvements. This is where transportation funding has come from. It’s where the taxes I pay for the purposes of transportation issues goes. So why should those tax monies not come out of said fund? Secondly, he frames this as a zero-sum, either-or situation.

“We can either fund education, health care and public safety or transportation improvements. You inhuman scumbag.”

This is simply not correct. The other thing it does is completely ignore the documented fact that we’re sitting on a $4 billion surplus in that fund. Why is it not going to the purposes for which the money was collected in the first place? The notion that the money just isn’t available is simply wrong and it’s a sure sign that someone has their eyes on creation of all manner of public programs that they’d rather just swipe our road funds to pay for.

By the way, you can take a much more comprehensive (though not necessarily less biased) survey over at Poisson’s web site. If you’re local to the 32nd District here in Loudoun, go get your voice heard.