Posted on 12/31/2014 7:06:21 AM PST by TurboZamboni
Minnesota's highway needs can't be met without more tax revenue, Gov. Mark Dayton said Tuesday -- setting him up for a possible clash with the new Republican majority in the House.
Dayton is finalizing his 2016-17 budget proposal, which aims to raise what he says is the $6 billion Minnesota's roads need over the next 10 years. The plan calls for a 6.5 percent wholesale surtax on gasoline -- separate from the existing 28.5 cents-per-gallon tax already levied. That means the tax would bring in more money when gas prices increase.
"Our transportation systems are getting worse," Dayton said. "Anybody who drives to work anywhere in Minnesota knows they're getting worse, and they'll continue to get worse unless we spend more to improve them."
Republicans say they want to fix the state's roads, too -- but GOP leaders say Dayton's tax hike isn't needed. Instead, they want to shift money from public transit to roads.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
this is the same governor who wants to pass a law banning the Golden Gophers from having a home game before 12:00 kick off time. That governor - a demoncrat.
The headline and lead sentence seem to say the exact opposite of the rest of the article.
Just the thing to stimulate Minnesota’s economy...raise gasoline taxes. Of course those with lower incomes are affected most. So much for the DFL standing up for the little guy. The vast majority of this new tax money will be spent in the metro area and outstate Minnesota will get the crumbs.
Never a tax decrease for democrats. Never.
‘Reordering priorities’
Gov. Mark Dayton believes Minnesota’s highway needs can’t be met without more tax revenue, by another separate tax — because “our transportation systems are getting worse” (”Dayton, GOP square off over gas tax,” Dec. 31). He proposes a clever new tax that would follow with the price of gasoline at 6.5 percent, rather than the current flat tax of 28.5 cents a gallon. Plus, if you buy anything in the seven-county metro area, you’ll get Mark Dayton’s “special” extra half-percent sales tax increase “on everything you buy” where sales tax is collected in a metro-area transaction.
First, his new tax on gas is a “surtax,” meaning it is over-and-above any other tax assessed. Second, the gas tax money was originally dedicated to pay for roads and bridges but has been hacked apart over past decades for other transportation systems of political favor. Third, I am insulted by Dayton’s comment that taxpayers are insulted because the Republicans think there are other ways to solve the problem.
“This notion that we can pay for what needs to be done for the next decade by ‘reordering priorities’ is ludicrous,” Dayton said. Families, individuals and businesses have been reordering their priorities the past six to seven years in order to survive, and will continue to do so, especially as we pay the extra $2 billion of new taxes enacted in 2013. Reports say the state has a projected $1 billion surplus from our partially reviving economy.
Seems to me a billion a year from these 2013 taxes could take care of the road problems within a few years, or has Dayton already got ideas on how to spend that billion?
I think I have a better opinion about what is ludicrous.
Henry M. Votel, Forest Lake
http://www.twincities.com/Opinion/Letters/ci_27262276/Reordering-priorities
Great write (not me)
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