Based on this article, Minnesota is headed for war in 2016:
House Republicans have been working on a plan that doesn’t raise taxes but would dedicate the revenue from several existing taxes to fix road and bridges. But state Rep. Tim Kelly, chair of the House Transportation Committee, isn’t ready to say how much it will cost.
Kelly, R-Red Wing, said his plan would use some money from the state’s $1.9 billion budget surplus. He also wants to borrow some money, and dedicate a portion of existing tax revenue to transportation. Those taxes may include the sales tax on auto parts as well as taxes on leased vehicles and rental cars, which together raise about $200 million a year.
The GOP plan would dedicate additional revenues to fix roads and bridges without raising taxes. The DFL has a dramatically different approach:
Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said he doesn’t support dedicating tax revenue to transportation that now goes to the general fund. Bakk said using general fund revenue for transportation projects is a bad idea because lawmakers will always put a higher priority on education and health care than on roads and bridges.
“Those investments will always get delayed,” said Bakk, DFL-Cook. “So the challenge of trying to craft a transportation bill that relies on general fund spending is we can cobble a budget together for this two-year budget cycle, but after the 2016 election, a new Legislature is going to come in here and they’re going to have their own priorities.”
Not surprisingly, the DFL’s plan includes a massive middle class tax increase. According to the DFL’s own table, this massive middle class tax increase would cost the middle class $1,315,000,000 a year. That isn’t GOP spin. That’s the DFL’s own estimate.
Normally, Sen. Bakk is pretty good at reading the political tea leaves. This time, it looks like his political radar is failing him:
Even though his plan spends much less than Dayton and Senate Democrats, Kelly said the Republican proposal is more popular, according to recent poll from KSTP-TV and Survey USA.
“The biggest difference, of course, is where the revenue is coming from,” Kelly said. “As we lay out our plan, the state of Minnesota is going to help us out because we had a 75 percent approval on just our basic plan. When we see this, it’s going to go 85 percent.”
If Sen. Bakk want the 2016 election to be fought over transportation, he’ll be the minority leader in 2017. It’s that simple.
Technorati: Tom Bakk, Mark Dayton, Transportation, Middle Class Tax Increase, DFL, Tim Kelly, MNGOP, Election 2016
So maybe politicians need to re-prioritize to make roads and bridges a priority along with the black holes of spending, education and health care. Maybe we should stop spending money on antiquated forms of mass transportation (trains/LRT) and get back to moving people on buses that use existing roads, and then we can take that money blown on choo-choo’s, and build better roads.
To Chad: What a concept.