I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the residents of Portland for approving the proposed 10 cent a gallon gas tax. We here at the city government knew that Portland citizens were gullible... I mean, savvy enough to know that sometimes you gotta pay more taxes. We all need a good infrastructure, right?

Oh sure, in 1988 we passed a "road tax" that was even more controversial and we here at the city crossed our hearts and hoped to die that that money would finally fix our roads. And for you naysayers out there: Yes, ok, that money was spent on other projects, we know this and we're sorry. Nearly $200 million would have gone towards our roads if we would have kept our promise, but you know, stuff happen sometimes.

And yes, PBOT already has a budget/pittance of $102 million a year to be spent on... well, roads, but again, life has a tendency to throw you a lot of curve balls. We simply need even more money.

Americans have short attention spans; this fact was our key strategy when proposing this new gas tax and we were successful in getting you to buy what we were selling.

We promise to actually spend this new tax revenue on roads... well, I mean we promise to spend about 65% of this revenue on roads, 35% will actually go to other projects. We totally pinky-swear, and if we don't do what we've promised... well, we'll just ask for more money in 4 years because most of you won't remember any of this.

Thanks suckers! Oops, I mean, thanks Portland!