LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Southern Californians are already paying well over a dollar more for a gallon of gas than the rest of the country, according to AAA.
Now, Gov. Jerry Brown wants add $65 dollars on top of your car registration.
That is bad news for Lovel Johnson, who is the sole bread winner in a family of seven. “It would kill me. We own four cars, me and my wife,” Johnson said.
The fee is part of the governor’s new budget proposal that would affect cars, trucks and motorcycles. Trailers will be excluded. The Governor’s Office says the additional fee would raise about $2 billion a year to go toward fixing roads and bridges.
Gary Salsbury is the president of the Southern California Contractors Association. “It’s a fair way to spread out the cost burden to everybody,” Salsbury said.
He said fixing roads will help car owners save money in repair costs. But more important, the plan would create construction jobs. “Those jobs would pay between probably $65,000 and $100,000 a year,” Salsbury said.
The Governor’s Office says the $65 fee would be ongoing. In other words, California car owners will be paying it as long as they owner a car.
According to the American Petroleum Institute, Californians pay about 40 cents a gallon in state taxes and fees for gas, which Johnson thinks should be enough to fix California’s roads.
“It seems like it’s getting more and more expensive. A lot people are moving out,” he said.
