In the mornings, I often run into a Naval Academy grad (Class of 1957) taking his daily walk.

“Have you raised my taxes yet?”  he frequently asks.

I know the answer he doesn’t want to hear.

Yesterday, the Governor announced his proposal to increase the gas tax to raise money to improve the state’s transportation infrastructure.

When I ran into my neighbor today, I decided to sail into the headwinds.

I told him what the Governor had done.

“Why do we need to do that?”  he asked.

“To compete with Virginia, which has increased its tax to improve its system,” I responded.

“Why does that matter?” he replied.

I thought about saying that we could compete with Mississippi instead but thought better of it.