We don’t need more city taxes. We need less city government.

Oh, goodie, another tax — and spend — scheme hatched in City Hall. This time it is a 10-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax supposedly aimed at reducing residential property taxes. Oh, and nobody cares what you think about it.

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz says his proposed levy would fall beneath the city's tax cap and raise about $12 million in its first year. The tax bill for a $350,000 home would be trimmed about $350, he says.

The idea, hizzonor says, is to spend more on snowplowing and firefighters — and Mom and apple pie, we can presume — and pay for it with the proposed tax. Anchorage's general government budget would increase by $10 million from the current year, to $519 million, Alaska Dispatch News reported.

It is more than a trifle strange that Berkowitz, a liberal's liberal, would even suggest such a tax. What he is proposing is a fairly stiff levy that is, on its best day, as regressive as a tax can be.

Add to that: It would increase a business expense – higher fuel costs – that would be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Also, there is the new bureaucracy to enforce and audit the tax, and the inconvenience and liability to businesses forced to collect the tax and account for the money.

[Berkowitz's Anchorage budget proposal: Lower property taxes, new gas tax]

Then, there is the expense disparity among Anchorage drivers. Commuters who live in Peters Creek and Eagle River and drive to work in Anchorage will have to pay much more than those living and working in town — and Valley drivers smart enough to gas up near home will pay nada, zip.

All that aside, who in their right mind would not welcome lower property taxes? Property owners in Anchorage shoulder nearly the entire fiscal load, but is a gas tax the way to lessen the load?

While essentially nothing more than a sales tax on gasoline, the levy actually would be considered an excise tax because it is a tax on a specific good. Why is that important? You will not get to vote on it. Berkowitz & Co. have found a way to get the proposed levy around voters and before the Assembly — that is expected Oct. 24 — where it requires only a simple majority to pass. It is the only way it has a prayer.

Voters would have to approve the levy if it were a sales tax, and history would not be on Berkowitz's side. Voters in 1997 set the bar for sales tax proposals at 60 percent of votes cast. In 2001, they overwhelmingly rejected a proposed 2 percent sales tax, and a 3 percent sales tax in 2006.

The reason proposed sales taxes crater every time they are offered in Anchorage is that few rational people trust government. No, really. Only the most trusting and deluded souls among us would believe any levy will remain for long at its initial rate. Somehow, that 10-cent tax would grow to 15 cents in a few years, voters believe, then 20 cents — just as such taxes have inched upward since some politician eons ago decided they would be a nifty way to reach into our pockets.

Those feelings in this city may be justified. A quick look at our rapacious government's shenanigans leaves little doubt the doubters are on to something. Berkowitz & Co. earlier wanted a charter change to kill the required 60 percent sales tax majority and change it to a simple majority. Why? To pursue a 2 percent proposed "tax revenue diversification measure" that aimed to rake in $100 million a year.

The Assembly's left-leaning majority rejiggered how the city's voter-approved tax cap was calculated in a bid to rake in $1.4 million in additional property taxes. Voters reversed that chicanery. Then it was reported the city has a spending limit — who knew? — that routinely is ignored.

Early last year, hizzonor revised his budget, announced a projected $14 million surplus and asked his Assembly majority to jack up property taxes by nearly 7 percent. Oh, and he wanted to tax to the maximum limit allowed by the city charter. No need to bring up the months of poor-mouthing about a $20 million deficit for next year — followed by fat raises to city workers.

[Dozens of Anchorage city executives got big pay boosts earlier this year]

It is easy to forgive those whose faith in government is frazzled.

If the mayor and his friendly Assembly majority are successful, the city simply will have another tax it could increase — and it would require only a tweak to the tax cap, something the Assembly majority has shown it is more than willing to do. Homeowners would get to see their property taxes and the gasoline levy seesaw toward the heavens.

If the idea truly is to ease property tax payers' burden, there is a better way to do it than dodging voters to get a new tax.

Smaller government.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.