It isn’t like the state’s roads are repairing themselves, or that Californians are already enjoying smooth rides through the high Sierras and other regions. The reduction in budgets as posted in the Los Angeles Times report today were earmarked repairs and upgrades to California’s roads that are being cut because politicians leveraged future infrastructure costs to the variable price of gas at the pump. As crude prices continue to plummet, California’s politicians are feeling the pinch at the pump for a change.
However, politicians know how to replenish government coffers. California legislators are busy trying to sell new layers of taxes and fees just as motorists are feeling a little relief at the pump. By so entangling road infrastructure budgets with crude oil prices through tax policies, state and local politicians have reached a dead end that seemingly only new taxes and fees can bridge.
“What this means is that almost every county in California that relies on this source of funding for projects that improve traffic and air quality will have to cut or delay projects indefinitely,” said Lucy Dunn, chairwoman of the California Transportation Commission, on Thursday. As politicians are wont to do, she sternly warned of “even more draconian cuts next year” if new taxes and fees aren’t imposed by lawmakers to improve transportation finances.
Beyond the steep decline in sales tax revenue caused by low gas prices, the rate of the state’s fuel excise tax is tied to the price of gas at the pump, which is sharply lower. Legislators would like to impose a new .12 per gallon fuel levy to be collected on top of the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax that is charged to all drivers in the nation to fill the federal government’s transportation funding coffers.
According to the Times, the decline in revenue tied to gas prices may cost L.A. County $191 million in road and rail projects that could be terminated or delayed. The endangered funding includes $129.4 million budgeted for the purchase of light rail vehicles, $7 million for a Burbank Airport/rail station pedestrian bridge project, and money for the widening of two stretches of Route 138.
Meanwhile, California’s legislature is in the familiar mode of selling taxes and fees to citizens still trying to recover from the longest and slowest economic recovery in the nation’s history.
In addition to the push for new taxes and fees by the state’s legislators and governor, other pro-tax entities have joined the fray. For example, Jim Earp, a commissioner and member of the California Alliance for Jobs, a business-labor group representing the construction industry, has joined the call for higher taxes and fees.
“We’re talking about projects in the billions of dollars, which is tens of thousands of construction jobs, let alone how it filters down into other aspects of the economy,” Earp said.
