Republican Senator Proposes Tax Hike for Transportation
Bucking his party and the state’s leadership, state Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, filed a bill Wednesday proposing a constitutional amendment to temporarily raise the state sales tax to pay off billions of dollars in bond debt accrued by the Texas Department of Transportation.
If Texas lawmakers and then voters approve Senate Joint Resolution 47, the state’s sales tax would rise from 6.25 percent to 6.75 percent until the state raises enough money to pay off TxDOT’s debt. The move would free up $1 billion a year — now used for debt service — that TxDOT could use ...
Comments (22)
Jamie Lewis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
oh, my- you mean we NEED roads and TAXES must pay for them?
Adam Silva via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Interesting that a Republican is willing to raise taxes... of course, it is the regressive sales tax.
Kathy Fritz Fritz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Bull! It'll never end. Stop supporting half of MX and their anchor mooches and we'll have plenty of money.
Arthur M. Thomas IV via Texas Tribune on Facebook
How about they quit diverting road funding before they decide to raise taxes? Who says they will be any more responsible with the increased income? Just more bait and switch just like the toll roads. 'oh we have no money..' quit spending it on other stuff!
Jim Vance
NO -- ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! What we have here with this proposal is not simply a failure to communicate in policy terms, but a complete and utter travesty in governance -- a radical paradigm shift is required, not some one-off "get out of jail" hall pass for the highway lobby and its sycophants.
Simply pushing some temporary sales tax hike as a "quick fix" way to pay off the debt TxDOT has accrued in the past 15 years from splurging on a bunch of toll roads, just so the debt ceiling won't constrain a continuation of that same practice is both fiscally unwise and horribly unjust in social economic terms, not to mention a callous extortion from the motoring public in every class. The clear objective of Eltife and all of his ilk in the Lege is to sustain the longstanding 'build it and they will come" Ponzi scheme in Texas -- a scheme that works by creating new-alignment exurban roads that primarily benefit development and construction industry insiders and their political allies both in the short- and longer-term future. This proposal would allow more bidness-as-usual sweetheart toll road deals to be created in another cycle, and does not in any meaningful way address the dire problems of basic road maintenance or reconstruction for the existing road network.
Sergio Jaramillo via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What a bunch of retrogrades. Regressive taxation is their name of the game: raising sales taxes and fees. The moral bankruptcy of modern day conservatism is outstanding.
Kimberly Petty Juarez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh, this could get interesting......
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wow. Hypocrites.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Perhaps if they didn't give companies like Apple so many tax expenditures/subsidies?
Katie Martinez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Uh, why is TxDot budget cuts not even an option in this scenario? Why not postpone some of these massive and not imminently necessary $multi-million road projects that are happening literally everywhere all over the State?? Talk about out-of-control spending... Last session legislators cut school funding by $5 bn and added that much to TxDOT's. We should have done the opposite.
Jan Paden via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What about all those road projects that will be collecting tolls forever, what about THAT money?
Molly O'Rielly via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I could be totally wrong about this, but I heard in reference to a Senate Health and Human Services committee I was at recently that some of the TxDot employees get company trucks. That would be a good area to get rid of some wasteful spending.
Andy Garza via Texas Tribune on Facebook
When you spend more than you bring in ("progressive modus operandi") you have to pay up sometime
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Huh? They never raise taxes.......so they say. But the corporate welfare goes on.
Sergio Jaramillo via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Bambi, throughout the nation is practice is common-place by people on the right. I submit to you the example of Romney as a governor in Mass who ran saying he "never raised taxes" while balancing the budget. Without mentioning his cuts, he significantly raised fees to make up for old revenue. Regressive taxation through "fees" is a modern day conservative's favorite revenue source because they get to call it "fees" while "not raising taxes". Anybody with a middle school math education should be able to see right through this.
Proud Texan
Good on you Senator Eltife for speaking the truth. We can't continue to make the "minimum payment" on the credit card and saddling future generations with our inability to pay as we go. This is the TRUE conservative way to do business, not "cut spending" and increasing debt while nobody is looking.
Tommy Walker
Eltife is right. However, I would prefer a consumption tax such as on the gasoline we buy rather than a sales tax.
Samdavis
"And we promise all this money will go to fix roads, just as soon as Perry and Abbott find ways to use it on their pet projects."
donald baker
Is there anyone actually stupid enough to believe any tax would be temporary?
John Johnson
Mr. Vance, I totally disagree with you and others who think we don't need new roads, are not improving those that need it, and are just looping new highways around municipalities so it will spur growth and development. Travel through the DFW Metroplex. Take a look at Hwy 183 from Fort Worth to Dallas. Take a look at the George Bush tollway. Upgrades to 183 were long overdue. GBT has made the trip from Mansfield to Plano a breeze compared to the convoluted route of just a few years ago.
We wanted to have a local vote on raising Metroplex gas taxes to pay for all this but all the "no new taxes" legislators in Austin would not allow us to do this. They prefer to continue to sell bonds, have generations that follow pay the interest, and utilize hokie accounting procedures to declare our budget balanced.
I applaud the few like Sen. Eltife who have the strength of conviction to make unpopular decisions that go against the grain...that go against party lines.
Status quo is a disease. There is an epidemic of it in Austin and D.C.
Jim Vance
@John Johnson -- Stupidity is a far worse disease than mere idiocy, and you seem to have contracted a severe case of it from buying wholeheartedly into the propaganda line.
Daniel Smith
Only about 50% of the tax revenue collect for transportation is used on transportation projects. Let's stop playing games and use those funds for the intended purpose before we raise taxes.