The House and Senate conferees have pounded out their final compromise on the transportation package. There are two more obstacles to go: The Senate must approve the final version, which may or may not happen: Democrats and a handful of Republicans are still unhappy with key elements of the plan. And then the package goes to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who also has expressed his displeasure.
As compromise has succeeded compromise, and amendment has piled upon amendment, the legislation, to my mind, has gotten worse and worse. The most significant change in this latest iteration, according to a press release from the Speaker’s Office is that it relies even less upon the General Fund than previous versions to pay for roads. Total General Fund revenues amount to “consistently less than 1 percent in any given year – and actually declines as a percentage over time.”
In other words, the legislation requires increased taxes, levies, fines and fees from other sources. Here’s how it the new revenues stack up: (1) a statewide revenue stream reaching $600 million per year; (2) regional taxes of more than $400 million per year for Northern Virginia; (3) regional taxes of more than $200 million for Hampton Roads; and (4) a sweetener of $2.5 billion in bonds issued over an eight-year period.
We started the General Assembly session arguing whether Gov. Kaine’s proposal to increase statewide taxes by $1 billion revenue was too much. Now the putatively “anti-tax” Republicans are patting themselves on the back for a package of state and regional taxes, fees and fines totaling about $1.2 billion a year — and that’s before taking on $2.5 billion in debt. No wonder Kaine has been sitting quietly and “contributing nothing” throughout this process. The more the Republicans have talked, the richer they’ve made the tax-and-spend elements of the legislation.
I can only imagine that Republican legislators are so close to the process that they have lost all perspective. They haven’t noticed that they’ve moved backward, not forward. They may be able to insulate themselves against charges of “doing nothing” on transportation, but they also have to deal with the utter dismay of their small government constituents. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but based on the documents provided by the Speaker’s Office itself, I am absolutely apalled.
HB 3202 does contain a couple of useful VDOT and land use reforms, but they only tinker on the margins of the problem. They don’t begin to un-do the damage created by the incoherent mix of tax revenues, or the shoveling of money into unaccountable regional transportation authorities. This entire process has wound up worse than I could ever imagine.
J.R. Hoeft over at BearingPoint, a solidly Republican blog, doesn’t sound any more enthusiastic than I am. If there are any Republicans out there who want to defend this legislation on the grounds of conservative/free market principles, as opposed to a panicky bid to save their nexts in the next election, I would like to hear from them.
