The total renewal fee for my four year old Toyota Prius was $140 last month. I’d be happy to pay more if I could get in return some of those really nasty pot holes on Hwy 101 fixed!

As for Davis restorating the original fees, a quick Google search resulted in this article:

http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/walters/story/257974.html

“Davis and his predecessor, Pete Wilson, had championed a series of reductions in the “vehicle license fee” that dropped it to about a third of its original rate of 2% of a car’s value, but as the state’s budget crisis worsened in 2003, Davis restored the tax to its original level.”

You’re certainly right that there was a firestorm about this during the recall, but I am sure you know as well as I that heated political discussions and/or propaganda often sacrifice facts and the truth for political gain.

The average you point out is due to two factors, first and foremost, vehicle registration is computed from two variables, the cost of the vehicle and the age. Over time, my registration will go down as my car gets older up until the 11th year when it bottoms out. So that $150 increase is based on an average of the 40 million cars in California and how much revenue reg fees generate.

Some, like me, are in the upper most band based on the valuation of my vehicle (the Davis plan did have a cap, so in retrospect my reg would not have simply tripled, it would have topped out at about $2k), while most middle class families are in a band higher than the average cited by the Rep Hollingsworth because they are driving cars less than 11 years old and valued higher than the median across the entire fleet.

Case in point is the Ford F150 truck I also have, in October of this year the reg fee for that was $200 and I only paid $13,500 for the truck.

So while Hollingsworth’s statement is technically accurate, it is misleading (on the low side) when you take a deeper dive on the stats.

Lastly, I’m not aware that the Davis plan restored Wilson era fees, if so that would be surprising to me given then firestorm that erupted, and lastly, that the lawsuit filed in the wake of the fee increase was based on the fees being an illegal tax. I could be wrong on that point as well, could research item.

A quick Google search led me to this statement on a Republican State Senator’s homepage:

http://republican.sen.ca.gov/web/36/cartax.asp

“Governor Gray Davis recently tripled the Car Tax that all California drivers pay to register their vehicles. The 300% hike kicks in this October. On average, this tax increase, which I believe is illegal, will cost car owners over $150 annually.”

Looks like your car isn’t quite the “average” California car!? Here’s a little math exercise for this sunny California Sunday. What was the average California car registration fee prior to the Davis increase if it cost the average driver $150? Just solve this equation: 3x = x + $150.

By the way, if I recall correctly (feel free to correct me), Davis simply restored the vehicle registration fees to the level that they were at originally before his predecessor Pete Wilson reduced them in 1998 due to a budget surplus (or, as some might say, to build up a “tax cutter” record for his Presidential election bid).

California has never had a revenue problem, it has a serious spending problem.