In Hunt for Roads Funds, Texas Won't Model Virginia
The Virginia Legislature drew national headlines this week after lawmakers there passed the state’s first overhaul of transportation funding in more than 25 years. The measure cuts the state’s taxes on gas and raises sales taxes.
Texas legislators are working on their own fix to the state's transportation budget woes, but the similarities with their Virginia counterparts ends there. Lawmakers and transportation advocates involved in the discussions say Texas is likely to leave both its 20-cent gas tax and 8.25 percent sales tax rate alone and hunt for money from other sources instead.
“What may be ...
Comments (12)
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
Eltife and Aycock appear to be some of the few sane, adult Republicans left in the party. Running up debt is not conservative. Living off of the difficult decision to raise revenue made by your predecessors 20 years ago is neither conservative nor "courageous". The Republican Party has atrophied intellectually. They have no new ideas. They have forgotten how to govern. Instead, they scheme at how to remain in power by redistricting and voter suppression. I would like to be proven wrong. It would be nice if the governing majority were willing to actually address the critical needs of this state. Those needs are public education funding, water and transportation infrastructure. The voucher and charter school freak show being promoted by Dan Patrick is a distraction from the real issue. Those ideas are neither new nor good. It's privatization to enrich corporate interests such as Jeb Bush.
Veronica Villalpando via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Uhm... It's always something.
Debbie Mason via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I keep hearing Gov Perry say we are in such good shape in TX. He can not have it both ways. Seems like they need to do a better job at balancing their budget. But I forgot it is Gov Perry and the GOP who are the majority in the Texas House. Not for long will they.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Balanced budget? ROTFLMAO. Sales taxes are recessive and hurt the working poor and middle class the most. Typical of Perry and the GOP lege.
Steven Felfe via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I am on the lower scale economically and I would prefer a sales base tax only set up. Get rid of property taxes.
Dormand Long
Funding mobility for the rest of the century can best be planned by relying on best practices management to find the very best protocols used anywhere in the world in a comparable environment to Texas.
One thing is for certain: our current formula is certain to lead to the perfect storm in gridlock. Our obsolete flat 20 cents per gallon of fuel does not even pay for the essential maintenance on the existing roads. Every single projection shows a quantum leap in population for Texas as families and entrepreneurial businesses flee those states committing fiscal hari-kari with their massive unfunded pension liabilities and obsession with bleeding those who are productive with excessive taxes.
Michael Morris, transportation guru of the North Central Texas Council of Governments advises that
our existing roads have supporting structures that were designed to last only forty years, and thus many will be entering into the self-destruct stage imminently.
I am sure that several places in the world have well thought out protocols for financing roads that will allow for supporting mobility and have superbly maintained road surfaces for their residents.
We need to move beyond the simple mind-set of just concrete pouring ( an incredibly profitable business ) to that of mobility and extreme avoidance of gridlock.
Instead of just paying out billions and billions for pouring more concrete, we need to allocate a few tens of thousands for communications to give motorists a heads-up that a non-moving gridlock is five miles ahead of them so they can circumvent that traffic jam.
We need to look beyond the civil engineering aspect of mobility and engage more human dynamics and thus reduce the peaks of traffic gridlock via such nudging in:
* encouraging partial telecommuting
* encouraging living closer to work
* staggering work hours so everyone is not on the same 9 to 5 schedule
* encouraging more internet shopping to reduce vehicular trips to brick and mortar stores
* emulating highly effective ride sharing protocols in Denver and Seattle to reduce one occupant
* discouraging free parking to stimulate transit usage
* demand that transit authorities such as DART become customer friendly to encourage use
* fully utilize massive data feeds from cell phones to manage and avoid gridlocks
* better advise commuters on when windows occur in their daily travels to minimize congestion.
* provide better recognition that one's time spent driving in daily commutes are their worst times
* signal that long commutes are the root cause of both decreased time with kids and cause of obesity.
* signal the immense cost of depreciation of one's car from excessive miles commuting
* encourage planned communities in which most of families needs are in proximity to their homes.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas Budget is Balanced. It is a 100+ year old requirement in the Constitution. Texas is in good shape. The economy is growing, joblessness is decreasing. New jobs are be created and moved here. We are fortunate that the legislature has created an atmosphere for economic good fortunes.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Karen what you call regressive is actually fair. But of course you want take what is not yours. Money does no one any good unless you spend it. Our sales taxes structure does protect the poor be exempting the basics. Those who have more money will pay more in taxes because the value of what they buy is greater and they buy more and will in the end pay more. That is pretty progressive!
Mack Green
Republican ideal on sourcing transportation; keep your taxes low but spend more on your toll $ paid to privatize profiting highway construction companies. Expect new toll lanes/roads/freeways on existing and older public highways. (less new tax though!!) Expect to pay back the subsidy (plus more) that you received to buy an efficient vehicle. Expect much higher fees generated to grab money. (no new taxes that you can write off though!!) Expect more dumb-asses on the road from TxDOT pulling funds from the education fund. Expect balanced budget claims around the next election cycle even though the state in in the hole billions.
Put your retirement money into private highway contractors and use the bus--you will do fine.
Jim Vance
Focus of the Lege and Perry: find some politically-acceptable ways to pump "new" money into the old paradigm of "build it and they will come" to sustain the longstanding insiders' game of induced-development land acquisition well in advance of any new-alignment road's actual construction so the post-approval and -construction land value enhancement and syndication process can continue to generate profits that will be recycled in charitable and political contributions which feed the Texas system whereby "money talks" a lot more loudly than any voice the voting electorate may have.
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
Matthew, you're either a liar or a moron. I suspect it's the former. Sales taxes are by definition regressive, since those with lower incomes pay a higher proportion of their income than those with higher incomes. I guess math doesn't matter to apologists for the current crop of stupid and discredited ideas which seem to hold sway among the fantasy economics crowd. For people like you, a $5.4 billion dollar cut to education funding is an increase. Not investing in infrastructure is good governance and it's ok to issue $billions in debt to cover current expenditures, as long as you don't raise taxes. Since Perry became Governor, we have been funding infrastructure, cancer research and anything else with borrowed money. As for the economy growing, it has more to do with the fact that there has been a boom in oil and gas drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale and other formations and the billiions of dollars in wages, salaries and royalty payments and little to nothing to do with the policies of Governor Dumbass. It's fine if you want to comment, but leave the mindless American's for Prosperity zombie talking points out of it.
Michael Hull
The budget was not balanced in any real sense--many of the honest Republican legislators have admitted as much--I guess the shills like Matthew didn't get that memo.
Why would the sitting Leg. have to pass several emergency measures this year? Because the last Leg. purposely budgeted for more 'stuff' and 'things' than they had money available. That's not a balance in any honest sense of the word.
Moreover, as the article points out, Texas is moving more toward acquiring more and more debt. Now, we've learned since Reagan that the right is obsessed with borrow and spend. And that's what's going on in Texas--has been for a while.
Funnier yet, Perry is touting tax cuts--meanwhile, agencies like TxDOT and CPRIT will issue more debt. That's a head scratcher, unless you're a borrow and spend "conservative." While the likely response to this is that lefties are the "tax and spend" type, if true, wouldn't a thinking person find that the more reasonable, responsible and 'conservative' means of a running an enterprise? You know, pay for the crap you want instead of putting it on the credit card....