I was browsing CommuterPage to figure out the best way to get to BWI for a trip this weekend, when I noticed that the front page was jam packed with links to editorials hectoring readers to approve a referendum increasing Virginia’s sales tax, with the revenue earmarked for various sorts of transportation infrastructure spending. Now, call me crazy, but there seems to be something the slightest bit sketch about taking taxpayers’ money, and then giving it to an agency which spends that money lobbying citizens to vote that agency more money. I mean, I guess I already pay to get told how to vote via our beloved elected representatives’ use of the franking privilege, but do they have to rub salt in the wound by letting every bureaucratic fiefdom of (in this instance) Arlington County do the same? If this is legal, it shouldn’t be.