12.05.07

TxDOT And Williamson County Road Money

Posted in Bad Government Republicans, Commissioners Court, Privatization, Road Issues, The Budget, Williamson County at 1:37 pm by wcnews

Before discussing the article below there’s one thing that must be understood. The depletion of road money, via the gas tax, from the federal government and the state government, has been the scheme run on all of us by Republicans, at both the federal and state level. Yesterday this article was posted to the KLBJ-AMweb site, Williamson County Committed to Continuing Road Projects. Essentially County Judge Gattis, and the rest of the court, are going forward with their planned roads, damn the consequences.

It appears they’ve bought the TxDOT line - hook, line, and sinker - that they’re broke. Despite their recent $8.2 billion infusion of cash. The quote below pretty much shows where the WCCC’s priorities lie:

Judge Gattis says there is no sense in the county, “crying in our beer,” over the situation. Too, he says there is no need to “point fingers”. He says the county is prepared to come together with the cities, developers and land owners to do as much as possible with the money available..

Notice there’s not a word about taxpayers, their constituents, in the article. And of course Gattis, Sr., would rather not have any finger pointing since his party is in charge of everything in the county.

Anyone who’s paid attention to this issue (TxDOT/road funding) and EOW knows that the gas tax in Texas has not been raised since 1992. Readers may also remember that about a year ago the Governor’s Business Council (GBC) released a study showed that with a one time 8¢ raise of the gas tax, then indexing it to inflation, and we could pay for all our future roads in Texas, and tolls would not be needed. Another often repeated theme is that raising the gas tax is always cheaper than tolls.

Our county government has bought into, and is using, this pathetic ideological gimmick that TxDOT is broke. That Williamson County needs new and better roads is not debatable. What is debatable is how we plan to pay for those roads. There’s a way to build new roads that’s cheaper, fairer, and saner for everyone involved. But expecting our “conservative” elected officials to even look at it, much less speak about it in public, is asking way too much. What they should be doing is taking the side of the people, the taxpayers, who they say are their constituents, and ask state and federal officials to do what’s best for them.

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