State transportation systems running out of gas

The governor is calling for an increase of a billion dollars a year to repair the state’s aging transportation system. Looking over their shoulders at their next opponent, nervous state legislators flinch at the higher taxes and fees that will be necessary to fund this work.  

You might think this is about Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Legislature, and you would be right. But it also perfectly describes what Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and his state Legislature are facing right now, as the Great Lakes State and many others across the country are all grappling with how to pay for huge and costly infrastructure repairs.

Just like his Bay State counterpart, Snyder has proposed an extra billion dollars a year in taxes and fees for Michigan’s crumbling roads and bridges. As of last week, not a single legislator had endorsed his plan.

Patrick has also called for a variety of ways to pay for his billion dollar plan, such as an increase in the gas and other taxes, a new green fee on vehicle registrations and regular and modest fare and toll increases, among other proposals.

Unlike in Michigan, some Massachusetts legislators have endorsed the Patrick spending plan. But the legislative leadership here has been cautious and House Speaker Robert DeLeo has said the proposed new revenues should be lower.

DeLeo, however, did say a transportation revenue plan would be his first priority in the new legislative session. Unfortunately, he said that a year ago, and it’s still not out of the box. Senate President Therese Murray hasn’t said much of anything about the issue. 

It’s hard to blame legislators for not wanting to stick out their necks as Patrick has. He says he’s not running for political office again and can’t be penalized at the ballot box. Not so for most legislators, who will run for reelection in 2014 and fear the charge that they’re taking us back to the days of “Taxachusetts.”

But those days are mostly gone, as the Massachusetts tax burden has significantly declined in recent years. Take the gas tax. Massachusetts ranks 29th highest out of the 50 states in its combined taxes and fees on a gallon of gasoline.

It’s the 45th highest in the nation on reliance in fees as a general funding source and 37th highest on tax burden on income. Much better than just a few years ago.

It’s likely the Legislature will act and act fairly soon on Patrick’s proposal, which totals $1.9 billion per year once the governor’s education initiative is added to his transportation plan. Patrick and his cabinet secretaries and department heads have been traveling the state selling the plan since it was released in January, and individual legislators are caught between a determined governor and a resistant electorate.

But with large majorities of Democrats in both houses of the Legislature, the Democratic governor knows he’s going to get some, if not all, of his request. It’s just a matter of how much and what funding mechanisms they agree on.

Snyder faces Republican majorities in both houses of the Michigan Legislature. To his credit and in the face of continued anti-tax fervor among his GOP colleagues, it will be no easy task to convince them to put the state’s transportation interests ahead of any “no new tax pledge” they may have taken.

Like Patrick, he’ll also get some, but surely not all, of what he wants. 

Regardless of the cost of the transportation fix, something’s got to give. The roads, bridges and transit systems can’t wait.

And in Massachusetts and Michigan, as with all of the other affected states, underfunding transportation needs now will just buy us a couple of years until the next crisis. And we’ll have to go through all of this again.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on March 28, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry