Rossi's gas-tax rant detours from the facts

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi is running radio and TV ads that lambaste Gov. Christine Gregoire for doing precisely what our state needed to do. Raise the gas tax. Get a few transportation projects done. Help businesses and motorists get moving.

Rossi's ads are artfully misleading. They all but blame the governor for today's higher gas prices. That is not what happened.

The year was 2005. Washington motorists were sick and tired of traffic. Business, labor and a huge number of forward-looking citizens urged state lawmakers to raise the gas tax 9.5 cents to build projects across the state.

Gregoire signed the bill. Then that same coalition beat back an initiative to recall the gas-tax increase. Hurricane Katrina was fresh on everyone's minds. Hesitating on important projects was considered foolish. This editorial page supported the increase in an aggressive editorial campaign.

Business, labor and Democratic and Republican lawmakers teamed together to find the necessary funds for expensive projects now being built. Washington state needs the investment badly. If Rossi is against the gas tax, he should state exactly how he would pay for the list of projects now under way.

The strangest part is Rossi himself voted for the first nickel gas-tax increase in 2003 for the same kinds of projects. Many smart suburban Republicans joined the effort in 2003 and the one in 2005 because the gas tax is used for road-building. The Eastside, where Rossi lives, and other suburban areas need new infrastructure.

Campaign advertising shrinks history and issues down to little snippets that makes it seem Gregoire did a bad thing.

She and numerous lawmakers raised the gas tax because it was time to invest in infrastructure and improve mobility in our state — for business and regular commuters. Gas prices have risen $1.50 a gallon or more since 2005, for reasons that have little to do with the gas-tax jump. The 9.5-cent gas-tax increase is the good news.

Rossi's gas-tax ads are unfair; he would be wise to pull them.