State legislator Skip Stam (R), the speaker pro tem and a close ally of speaker / US senator wannabe Thom Tillis, is hitting the rubber chicken circuit to sermonize on the brilliance and necessity he sees in toll roads.

We’re already paying one of the highest gas taxes in the country, and folks like Skip think we need to shell out more. In this video, state Rep. Bill Brawley — another Tillis confidante — admits that legislators have been raiding gas tax revenue meant for highway construction to pay for all kinds of self-centered pork barrel schemes.

We reported earlier on Skip’s enthusiasm for hitting us again with toll roads. He throws around the name of Ronald Reagan, and tries to convince us this is an important tenet of libertarianism.

Just like on Capitol Hill, there is little to no effort on Jones Street to try to live within their means. Running out of money? Dig a little deeper into the pockets of the peasants.

The deal that Tillis, McCrory, Brawley, Stam and the NCDOT are trying to sign us up for in Mecklenburg County is just like other deals around the country that have gone belly-up and required a taxpayer bailout. (There have been report that daily commutes on those toll roads can run $20 per day.) Clearly, Stam is laying the groundwork for expanding the toll / HOT lane concept to Wake County and other parts of the state.

An anti-toll road plank was inserted into the 2013 NCGOP platform, but was discreetly yanked in the 014 version of that document. It appears the North Carolina Republican Party is buying into the ideas of expanding government’s influence and of digging deeper into the pockets of working people. I want to see a more serious effort to identify more efficiencies in government and back government out of our lives.

This is not what I voted for in 2010 and 2012.