Bill, I'm willing to bet Tennesseans won't mind paying the extra 8 cents per bottle.

If I'm wrong, they'll do something amazing: they'll either stop drinking crap and lose weight or when they buy their 36 oz bottle of cola they'll stop throwing the empty bottles all over our state's roads and rivers just to get the money back.

If I'm right and people pay the extra 8 cents and still toss the bottle out the window, that means politicians who think people don't want to pay more "taxes" or "fees" just simply isn't true.

This bottle tax is nothing but a proxy for a gas tax increase. If you look at the fiscal summary, a lot of the money is going to TDOT. There are a lot of efforts going on now to get TDOT, counties and cities more money.

SB2953 drops the administrative rake off of two percent on gas taxes. SB2736 is a direct appropriation into the highway fund of $100,000,000. There is an effort underway to make it easier to register commercial vehicles in Tennessee. Registrations provide money for roads as well as gas and bottle taxes.

Last year there was an attempt to raise the registration tax, but it was for transit purposes. There was also an attempt last year to raise fuel prices 2 cents.

If you do not want toll roads, you may be forcing the state to look for the money in other places. The high population counties already use local sales and property taxes for roads in a big way (except Cumberland County). The hunt is on now and it is going on at both the state and local level. As long as the Federal Senate and the House version of the transportation bill are deadlocked, the most probable outcome will be a continuing resolution and more rescissions, not because the feds are mean, it is because the taxes are not pulling in the revenue. You can pass any federal bill and claim that is is worth anything you want to but if you don't raise the money with the associated taxes, everyone has to share the losses.

Transportation is running a construction price index average of 4.27 percent per year since the gas tax was increased in Tennessee. The consumer Price Index over the same period averages 3.19 percent. The average annual increase in GDP from 1987 to 2007 is 5.5 percent. Theoretically, we can afford it but we don't buy gas like we buy our cars or insurance. Those prices are fixed to predictable amounts over times from one to five years.

The next president of the US will sign a bill designed to rescue the Federal Highway Trust Fund. It is exhausted from trying to maintain increasing minimum guarentees.