That's an easy one. Your government has squandered the money they are collecting based on automobiles on other projects. Rather than admit this, they just play on the publics desire for better roads to add a new tax. Please see my other reply in this chain for more details. However, the most important quote from my previous post is: "Orange county collects 26.8% of its revenue from Vehicle Licence Fees. Only 37.3 % comes from Property Taxes. Only 12.2% of the total budget is devoted to infastructure improvement (including roads and parking)."
To net it out, your leaders are screwing you at least as far as claiming the Measure M taxes are needed for road improvements. They already are receving enough "vehicle related" revenue to pay for the improvements, except they are diverting significant portions of it to other uses. It is just the usual political shell game. Around here anytime the COunty governement wants to raise taxes, it is for education. Well that is untill recently. Now the City of Raleigh has started saying they are raising taxes for road improvements. They just never mention that a large percentage of the money raised by taxes that were originally supposed to be for roads is now being used elswhere. However, the roads have gotten so bad that people are despearate for improvements and are willing to swallow this latest lie.
Ed
