Paying for Roads

Lots of turmoil here in Austin about the plans for Toll Roads. This is Texas so actually paying a fee to drive on something is considered a plot by the Reds. :-) The issue is one of many where we, the body politic, ought to be working out how to pay for services.

The way it used to work, we all paid our various taxes and then that money got allocated to services and projects. In the case of Roads, we paid Federal income tax and gas taxes as well as various State taxes and portions of each ended up in TxDOT's budget and roads got built. There are many reasons to like and to dislike this system but that is not the point of this musing.

Ever since the Reagan Revolution, the Republican Party has been pushing the idea of less taxes. At the Federal level, this generally meant the divesting (or returning) the taxes and the responsibility to the States. As the movement has matured, it has also meant less taxes at the State level. Less taxes means less services but that is rarely mentioned.

So, along comes the Texas State budget for 2003 and we have a problem. The economy is in the tank and Tax revenues are declining. Since the Republican Party controls the House and Senate, the budget gets balanced without raising any taxes and with cutting services (big time).

Now it is 2004 and the board responsible for building roads in the Austin Metropolitan area have to figure out how to pay for all the roads people have been demanding. There is too little money from the State so they vote to use the new Toll Road authority to build the new roads as toll roads and to cover the maintenance costs of some existing new roads by making them toll roads too.

This is very fiscally responsible of them but the result is near universal condemnation and a move to recall all the members of the board State law permits to be recalled.

So what is going on here? The majority got what they wanted: no new taxes. Toll roads are an obvious consequence. Why the complaints?

The problem seems to me to be that the low tax mantra was sold without any honest discussion of how we were going to pay for the services we wanted. Nor was there much discussion of what services we ought to expect the State to provide. So the not very introspective among the Republican base (Ditto heads, this is you) never realized the consequences of the low tax candy they voted in.

So, If the Republican Party has any cojones at all, now is the time to have this discussion/argument. My prediction: the good old boy network got what they want (low taxes on their businesses and property) and are content to leave things unresolved.