Today in the Senate we honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a resolution and some speeches. The President, Peter Groff, gave his customary eloquent speech about the advances this country has made over the years because of people like King. Peter is a great man in every sense of the word. He happens to be black, the only American of African descent in the Senate and our leader.

The day was stolen, though, by Senator Dave Schultheis from Colorado Springs, another great man, who along with Senators Renfroe, Harvey, and Lundberg, delivered a series of speeches that highlighted the role of faith in King’s life and of faith in the greater struggle for freedom against tyranny, especially the tyranny embodied by slavery.

Schultheis’ work was brilliant.

You can read it for yourself, and you should, here: http://www.daveschultheis.com/Files/MLK2_Revised_.pdf

In other news, the Governor unveiled, almost, a plan to raise taxes to pay for roads and bridges in Colorado.

I say almost, because we haven’t really seen the bill, just some proposed fee increases and a hint that a vehicle miles travelled pilot program will be established.

The fees start with an increase of $29 as a minimum and go up from there to around $60 based on the weight of the vehicle, so farm trucks, even those that only see service in July or October, get whacked like they are part of the transportation problem. Motorcycles get a $29 increase too.

The vehicle miles travelled (VMT) tax is supposed to be tried as a pilot. I suggested that since the Democrat Governor likes this so well, it should be a pilot program in Denver and Boulder where all the Democrats live. Seems like a good way to try it to me.

I suppose that VMT could work if we figure out how to adjust for: out of state driving, out of state drivers driving here, the difference between rural and urban needs (i.e. the urban areas are the expensive areas), and one of the big ones, privacy.

Like I said, let’s try it out on Democrats first and see how they like it.