John Mica and the House leadership unveiled their long-overdue transportation bill today, and it's a stinking mess that takes its cues from Scott Walker and ALEC.
The bill would undo a funding arrangment dating to the Reagan era, guaranteeing a minority share of federal transportation funding for transit. Instead it would deliver unto the highway building industy -- one of the most powerful lobbies in DC and in statehouses around the country -- billions of new dollars for highway expansion.
The bill is cribbed almost directly from Walker and ALEC -- and their patrons in the highway-building industry. Please read on to the action item at the bottom.
A year ago Walker's budget proposed the exact same scheme for Wisconsin. The great Milwaukee blogger James Rowen:
In an enormously destructive move, Scott Walker's budget removes transit as a transportation category - - per Walker, transportation budgets are now the private preserve of the road-builder - - so "financing transit operation aids from the general fund will begin in fiscal 2012-2013."
That means bus systems will have to fight with other services for state aid in a shrinking state budget - - while highway aids gets a $410.5 million increase.
Look for local bus systems to raise fares, cut services, lay off drivers, then die.
Fortunately the idea was too radical even for Walker-era Republicans who control the Wisconsin legislature, and it died.
The fact is, roads cost much more than users pay in taxes, and "diversions" to transit, bicycling and pedestrian facilities are very small in the scheme of things. Small, that is, in comparison to spending on highways, but critical for the funding of these lower-budget modes, which in many cases do more to relieve congestion than supersizing freeways, while helping non-motorists cope with an autocentric built environment.
That hasn't stopped the right from pushing a lockbox approach on gas taxes. Here's the ALEC model legislation:
NEW SECTION: All fees collected by the State of ___ as license fees for motor vehicles and all excise taxes collected by the State of ___ on the sale, distribution or use of motor vehicle fuel, and any another motor vehicle related tax or fee shall be paid into the state treasury and placed in a special fund to be used exclusively for highway purposes.
This approach is less about good public policy than going to bat for a powerful lobby.
If the road lobby wants to raise gas taxes, tolls or license fees enough to cover 100 percent of roads, then they would have an argument for a lockbox approach. But the fact is, with all the hugely expensive highways we continue to build and try to maintain, the user share of the cost is falling, and subsidies rising. So the Mica bill is just another example of GOP hypocrisy on spending. As with the military and its contractors, highways and the road-builders are a huge exception in the Right's fight against big government.
Fortunately, the Mica bill, like Walker's, may be too radical to advance. Even the rightward leaning state-DOT lobbying group AASHTO objects:
We respectfully request that the current Highway Trust Fund structure with its two accounts and respective revenue allocations be retained.
And the bill taking shape in the Senate is better. But this is a measure that should be shouted down hard.
Please take a minute to weigh in against it. One way to do it is via the progressive transportation coalition Transportation For America.
Many thanks.