Henderson daily dispatch., 1934-05-01

miles of improved road, mostly sand
clay, under State maintenance. 1t
also has 95,125 miles of county roads
not cared for by the state. It has
no bonded indebtedness for roads but
is giving less than 80 per cent of the
people In the state highway servee
IL has also reduced the automobile
license fee to So per automobile, with
the following results:
revenue from the automobile lic-
ense tag in 1888 amounted to only ST.
OSo'261 as compared with $4,256,552 in
1872, a loss of $2,221,291. The Geor-
gla six cents tax on gasoline brought
In $l2,O67,S37 in 1882 and in 1888
amounted to only $12,414,822, a gain
of only $S46,985, probably no more
than a natural gain due to business
Improvement. This, however, repre-
sented total net loss to the State
of $2,S74, ,SO6 in total highway revenue.
very little gain in the revenue from
the gasoline tax resulted from the re-
duction in the cost of the license tags.
All the people in Georgia are not only
paying the six cents tax on gasoline
and the license tax also, but an even
heavier mud tax for lack of road
service.
Il hear ffrom people who have re-
Gently travelled over the Georgia
roads that even the concrete highways
are assuming roller-coaster effect,
which eventually means that even this
type of road is breaking down.
"The Georgia tax also has moral
side to it, since Georgia is selling her
Licensees to residents of other states
at So per set and is thereby cheating
other states out of collecting the tax
from residents. who are getting road
service. The result is that other
states are having to resort to drastic
measures to protect themselves against
an intolerable situation. The Geor-
gia license tag has become badge of
shame"
With regard to the situation in
Virginia, resulting from decrease in
the cost of the license tags, Miss
Berry said:
"a reduction of 40 per cent in the
cost of the Virginia license tags has
resulted in deficit of $2,669,378 in
the State highway funds. This State
has built it's highways piece meal out
OF current revenue. Federal aid and
the use of convict labor. The Vir-
ginia State highway system consists
of $500 miles of hard surface, $500
miles of other types and $1,000 miles
of country roads. 1t recently adopted
the North Carolina plan, in which the
state also took over the maintenance
of the county roads.
THE automobile license tax in Vir-
g1nia was formerly 20 cents per 100
pounds, while North Cardinals present
license tax is IS cents per 100 pounds
In addition to this state license tax
the cities of Virginia are permitted to
levy heavy license taxes. In some
cases, am told, the city license taxes
are as much as the state tax. But
in North Carolina the highest city
license tax allowed is ST. per car.
Hence, even with the 40 per cent re
auction in the State license tax the
city dwellers in Virginia are in the
end paying much higher tax rate
than any car owners in North Caro-
lima.
Virginia is paying $5OOOOOO a year
for the maintenance of 5000 miles of
state highways, while North Carolina
is now spending only $1.68O,O0O per
year maintaining it's 1O43O miles of
primary roads. Virginia is spending
SIS, 1852, 1872 on the maintenance and
construction of $1,000 miles of county
roads, while North Carolina is allot-
ted only $4,32O,OOO to spend on the: