The
current fight in the Virginia General Assembly over
a state tax increase bears a resemblance to the 2004
fight, but there are important differences. The
first is that taxpayers are still adjusting to the
2004 tax increase — the largest in state history.
Another
difference is that the opponents of a new tax hike
realize the need to present an alternative to
raising taxes. They are proposing methods of meeting
mobility needs without a tax hike. House Speaker
William Howell, House Transportation Committee
Chairman Leo Wardrup and other GOP delegates
recently announced the outline of a House GOP plan
that would include a greater role for private
financing of new transportation facilities.
The
proponents of a tax increase for transportation have
overstated the problem. For example, Senate Finance
Chairman John Chichester, who is pushing a
combination of tax increases and new taxes and fees
on the sale of fuel and vehicles, on auto repair and
the registration of SUVs and certain other vehicles,
claims that “Virginia ’s transportation system
has moved from life support to Code Red.”
What
proponents refuse to acknowledge are the negative
consequences of the tax increase for transportation
enacted at a special legislative session in 1986
called by then-Gov. Gerald Baliles. They propose a
repetition of the very approach that contributed to
the present problems. That 1986 tax hike followed
just five years after a gas tax increase had gone
into effect. As an exhaustive 1990 doctoral
dissertation demonstrated, the new revenues
generated by the 1986 tax hike failed to reduce
traffic congestion and to provide a stable,
continuing source of funding for transportation —
the twin objectives of the Baliles tax initiative.
In
a February 21, 1988, Washington Post article,
John Lancaster reported that traffic in Northern
Virginia remained as congested as ever. An article
in the June 1990 issue of Virginia Business
concluded that driving in Northern Virginia was as
difficult as before the infusion of new tax
revenues. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who succeeded
Baliles, commissioned a study of transportation
after his 1989 election which found that projected
transportation needs to the year 2010 had risen by
79 percent over the 1986 projections for 2010.
Matters were getting worse, not better.
In
1989, Baliles himself recognized that the gap
between available revenues and transportation needs
had not been closed by the 1986 tax hike. He
proposed yet another tax increase to address
transportation needs. His suggestion was to empower
localities to impose an additional one percent
income tax for their local transportation needs.
Wilder
initiated a program in 1990 to link land use and
transportation planning, just as Governor Tim Kaine
is proposing. Both plans have a laudable objective,
but a fundamental flaw as well. Most of the
localities experiencing heavy growth pressure have
no responsibility for roads. The Virginia Department
of Transportation, which continues to have that
responsibility, does not make land use decisions.
Until accountability for results is assigned to one
or the other, the linkage between land use and
transportation decision making will remain tenuous.
Kaine’s
second round of town hall meetings may expose the
tension between his support for higher
transportation taxes and his growth control
proposals. Just as the Baliles tax hike produced an
explosion of low density development far from
existing urban cores, another infusion of tax
funding for roads will do more to encourage sprawl
than any local growth controls could possibly
counteract. And Kaine’s growth control proposals
could give localities greater authority to push
development even further out.
For
these reasons alone, the 2006 session isn’t like
the 2004 session.
--
February 13, 2006
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