Americans last week mourned the death of a president, including thousands in oil-rich Texas standing by rails to watch the train carrying George H.W. Bush to his final resting place. In Paris, the French were rioting.
Rioting in France is nothing new. They do it every so many years, when the mood strikes them. As Gen. Charles DeGaulle once said of his beloved nation: “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”
The current French protests are not about le fromage. The riots — at the height of pre-Christmas shopping in fashionable Paris, along with Marseille and Bordeaux — targeted higher taxes on gasoline. The hefty new carbon tax was to pay for climate change programs outlined by the 2015 Accord de Paris, the same agreement President Trump has rejected due to his doubts on warming greenhouse gases enveloping the planet.
Apparently, Illinois officials haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening in France, because just a month after the election, they want to raise the state gas tax from 19 cents to upward of 30 cents a gallon to finance what they call needed infrastructure, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The French don’t want to pay higher gas taxes to mitigate global warming and now use weekends for escalating protests and riot time, rather than drives in the country. The French casseurs, or vandals, have burned vehicles, looted stores and smashed windows in buildings across the core city of Paris.
President Emmanuel Macron has conceded to the “Yellow Vest” rioters, who attend protests attired in the neon-yellow safety vests French drivers are required to carry in their vehicles (not a bad idea for Illinois motorists, lawmakers). He has dropped plans for the energy tax hikes.
I don’t expect Illinois drivers to take to the battlements as they have in France. We may grumble and try to have our voices heard at the ballot box, but with a Democrat governor and supermajority in the state legislature, hold on to your wallets and get ready for pump shock. The “proposed” gas tax increase is just the beginning of a series of new revenue streams officials will be adopting to fund this red-ink state.
Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker is like other Illinois officials who want to be builders, not just leaders. He’ll be on board for a gas tax increase.
His current cheerleader for a gas tax hike is Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who along with a handful of mainly suburban Cook County mayors earlier this week proposed the pump tax, which hasn’t been increased since 1990. Road planners say the state is in a $24 billion highway maintenance deficit just to fund existing repairs. Um, how’d that happen?
Lake County drivers currently pay local, state and federal taxes on gasoline, along with state and local sales taxes, along with a mass transit tax to fund Metra. The Wisconsin border isn’t that distant when a gas tax hike is passed and signed by Pritzker.
If you head north to fill up to escape higher fuel costs here, might as well stop and shop at Woodman’s at Interstate 94 and Highway 50, have lunch at Uncle Mike’s just down the road. Then, stop on the way home at the Premier Outlets in Pleasant Prairie instead of heading to Gurnee Mills. Illinois motorists close to Indiana can also escape high fuel taxes.
Of course, those electric cars General Motors is banking its future on also will be taxed in some fashion. They use state roads as well as those of us driving vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.
French citizens have a burning response to their government officials imposing higher gas taxes. What will ours be?
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
