Forget the staggering sums transportation experts are citing about unmet state transportation needs — the billions and billions. Forget the $200 million a year MnDot states as the bare minimum it needs simply to maintain the transportation status quo.
All taxpayers need to do is remember the enervating hours they’ve spent stuck in traffic — the frustration and anger, the time lost with family — and it becomes plain that something needs to be done before things become worse.
And things will, if left unaddressed. That’s what makes an increase in the gas tax so timely.
The gas tax hasn’t been raised in more than a decade. Currently at 20 cents a gallon, inflation over the decades has reduced its value to about 13 cents. Arguably a user-fee, a gas tax increase will result in stable, long-term funding so coveted by transportation planners.
Depending on the amount a person drives and the amount of the increase, a gas tax increase for motorists could translate per year into the cost of a couple of fill-ups. But in terms of transportation funding, just a four cent a gallon gas tax increase would mean $128 million a year in additional revenue.
The Minnesota business community has rallied behind a gas tax increase. These hardheaded business people, who rise or fall by the bottom line, would not be calling for a gas tax hike unless the need was self-evident.
The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce sees the need as self-evident. And many other business associations do too.
But the gas tax is in jeopardy in the Legislature. Currently, House Republicans are at best divided over increasing the gas tax, though both Senate DFLers and Republicans propose a gas tax increase as part of their transportation funding packages, DFLers proposing the highest gas tax increase at six cents a gallon.
Gov. Ventura proposed a gas tax increase as part of his budget-balancing proposal in January as a budget-balancing means. How the governor would react to a gas tax increase slated solely to transportation coming from the Legislature is uncertain. But Ventura has long been an advocate of more transportation funding.
With an election short months away, lawmakers are not eager to raise the gas tax — raise any tax, for that matter. That the Senate DFL and Republican caucuses are both proposing to do so, again speaks to the urgency of additional transportation funding.
House Republicans and DFLers should remember that providing transportation is one of the most basic tasks of government. Politics should be set aside.
Pass a gas tax increase.
The public is waiting, on 35W, 494, 694 — at bottlenecks and choked intersections all over the metro. The public is anxious, tightly gripping the steering wheel on narrow, inadequate rural highways.
And along with highways, transit, too, should receive some of the additional funding a gas tax increase would bring.
ditor’s note: This editorial was a product of the ECM Editorial Board.
