Common Core teaches if you add a positive number, you jump to the right on a number line, unless you are a legislator. It really doesn’t matter, anyhow. It is how you feeeeeeel about your answer. Mitch Kokai had this to say about a gas tax – shall we say, splice?

Yes, the Republican-led General Assembly has voted for and Gov. Pat McCrory has signed into law an effective increase in North Carolina’s gasoline tax. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

A real 1.5-cent cut in the tax rate on April 1 will lead to cost savings for consumers at North Carolina gas pumps between now and the end of June. GOP lawmakers are correct when they say they have cut the gas tax.

But the 36-cents-per-gallon tax rate that will be in effect July 1 is more than 6 cents higher than the tax rate that would have been in place on that date if lawmakers and the governor had done nothing.

That’s a tax increase.