11.16.09
Carona slams toll roads, advocates for raising the gas tax
At the end of last week the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association (TTRA) got together for their annual meeting. While they have a catchy name, it’s hard to tell from the TTRA’s BoD list if any actual taxpayers were represented, (since corporations in Texas pay little if any taxes in Texas). At any rate it was clear from Friday’s media reports that a blasphemer to the GOP “anti-tax” party line showed up. It was GOP Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas), Raise gas tax 10 cents a gallon? It’s on table.
The Senate Transportation and Homeland Security chairman Friday suggested a 10-cent-a-gallon increase in Texas’ gasoline tax for a system that’s soon to run short of money for new roads.
The proposal touted by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, got a cold reception from GOP Gov. Rick Perry at a conference by the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association.
Carona’s plan is very similar to the one Democratic candidate for Governor Hank Gilbert has proposed. EOW commends Sen. Carona for stepping up and unequivocally standing up for raising and indexing the statewide gas tax. (He’s been strong before on transportation issues, only to pull back in the past, so we should keep that in mind.) He was predictably pilloried by those in his party who are responsible for the neglect of our state’s transportation infrastructure, and want to hand it over to corporations via privatization and for profit toll roads.
Perry — who has talked often of the need for more transportation funding and pushed what proved to be an unpopular plan that included a strong component of private investment in toll roads — sounded anything but supportive.
“Going to Lubbock, Texas, and telling ‘em ‘Hey we’re gonna raise your gas tax out here a dime so they can build some more roads in East Texas’ is generally not a real good political sell,” Perry said.
“So it’s there, and it’s talked about, and it’ll probably have about the same result as it has had in the last four or five years, and that’s not a very … warm welcome in the Legislature.”
The 20-cent-a-gallon state gasoline tax hasn’t been raised since 1991.
It should come as no shock to anyone that since there has been no new money for transportation since 1991 that our transportation infrastructure is suffering the way it is. Follow me and read the rest of the entry to listen to, and read what Carona said after his panel discussion was over.
At the Lone Star Report they posted an audio of a press availability Carona had after his panel at the TTRA meeting, Carona, Raise gas tax, put local tax hikes on House floor. About 7 minutes in Carona really starts to lay down some truth on statewide toll road plans and comprehensive development agreements (CDA). Not exactly word for word but very close:
To build a private toll road, to enter into a comprehensive development agreement, costs 3 to 5 times more than it does to build a gas tax road. You’ve got the debt service and you got the double digit annual return to private investors to consider.
There is nothing, there’s nothing, fiscally responsible about advocating toll roads as the solution. And to those people who say, “Well, it’s a user fee”, you know that’s bunk.
You know when you have a system going forward, designed such that every major road has to become a toll road, then that’s not a voluntary user fee. It’s just a hidden tax. Because every on of us, whether we wish to use the toll road or not, we will be forced on the toll roads to get from point A to point B.
Perry’s comment about not raising taxes during a recession should be taken for what it is, GOP gibberish. Perry is never for raising taxes, so he shouldn’t be taken seriously on the issue. We’ve been through this discussion many times at EOW, construction costs and upkeep on roads in Texas are the responsibility of all Texans and it must be paid for. And the least expensive and fairest way to pay for it is with a modest increase in the statewide gas tax, the most expensive for all Texans is corporate toll roads.
The other issue that Carona touches on is that who is elected next year, and the make up of the Texas House – where tax bills originate – is key to this kind of equitable solution coming to fruition. In other words more and better Democrats in the House and no Gov. Perry in 2011 is what we need to get a resolution to the transportation funding problem in Texas.
HeavyDuty said,
November 17, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Go to Lubbock and tell them we’re going to raise the fuel tax on everybody, so that people in the eastern part of the state (where more consumers consume more fuel; pay more fuel taxes) can subsidize road building out in west TX!
Eye on Williamson » Here we go again – more of the same on transportation funding said,
November 17, 2009 at 3:49 pm
[...] Gilbert and GOP state Sen. John Carona have forced a discussion, finally, about raising the statewide gas tax in Texas into the [...]