Posted on 09/04/2007 6:16:35 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A report left out of the public spotlight for more than six months reveals that officials at the Texas Department of Transportation want to toll interstate highways and shelter private investors from paying income taxes on toll revenue.
On Feb. 28, Texas transportation officials submitted the report to the 110th Congress entitled “Forward Momentum.”
The report did not attract much attention at the time. State lawmakers have only recently begun to speak out about it.
Texas state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, called the recommendations a form of double taxation, according to The Associated Press.
In the report, TxDOT urges federal lawmakers to expand tolling authority to interstates beyond a series of pilot programs authorized in 2005 transportation legislation known as the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users – SAFETEA-LU.
TxDOT proposes that the federal government do the following:
The goal, TxDOT officials stated in the report, is to reduce congestion, expand the economy, enhance safety and improve air quality.
But lawmakers like Carona are not buying it. The state senator has been opposed to tolling any existing roads.
In April, the Texas Senate passed legislation co-authored by Carona to place a two-year moratorium on privately funded toll roads.
The bill received Gov. Rick Perry’s signature despite the governor’s overall penchant to promote toll roads and public-private partnerships.
Perry’s administration has worked closely with TxDOT officials to craft projects like the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor linking Mexico with the southern Midwest.
– By David Tanner, staff writer
September 4th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Looks like the Texas Department of Transportation has its own agenda in Washington, D.C. Last week, several Texas newspapers reported that TXDOT is lobbying Congress to convert your favorite freeway into a tollway. Texas Legislators are aghast at the department’s plan, euphemistically called ‘Forward Momentum’ — that would change federal law to allow the use of equity capital to toll such oft-used roadways as existing interstates.
Rick Perry’s spokesman Robert Black says it’s all okay, since free highways cannot be converted to tollways without the approval of local voters. But it’s hard to nail down what is crazier here. I mean, is it easier to imagine tolls on I-35 or a state agency with its own paid federal lobbyists trying to circumvent the stated goals of almost every lawmaker in Texas?
To make matters worse, in February members of the Texas Senate specifically chided TXDOT for this kind of behavior. You can watch video of it here (the relevant part of the meeting starts 1:59:00). But, in case watching Senate hearings is not your thing, let me just summarize.
The executive director of TXDOT and a commissioner from the Texas Transportation Commission were asked by senators about $1 million spent on lobbying contracts for an outfit called the Rodman Company. Senator Royce West (D-Dallas) managed to confirm that upwards of $500,000 was being spent by the agency to lobby D.C. on efforts relating to the Trans-Texas Corridor. Despite the fact that TTC has been sold to voters as a project that would require zero taxpayer dollars, TXDOT had apparently been paying private lobbyists to pave the way for federal legislation that would allow the department to move forward on all things TTC. Needless to say, the senators were not pleased.
In the dry language of the Senate Research Center summary:
Senator Shapiro, Senator Ogden, and Senator Whitmire questioned whether these efforts were necessary or effective and stated that the issue should be pursued through Texas’ Congressional delegation rather than private lobbyists. Senator Eltife stated that the expenditure was “wasteful, unnecessary, and disgraceful.”
by Cody Garrett
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Taxing does not expand the economy. We need a wholesale replacement of our elected officials. They are not working in our best interests.
perry and his crooked buds are going a good job of creating a democrap win in 2008 in texas.
My business fills and serves the public needs- why not make my profits exempt from taxes also?
My business fills and serves the public needs- why not make my profits exempt from taxes also?
If that ten horn dictator Castro was a young man he could take lessons from the txDOT on how to nationalize assets.
TXDOT is out of control. Someone will stop them.
Because your not a friend of Perry.
TXDOT is out of control and the Legislature needs to rein them in “Big Time”!
He will get impeached if he keeps this up.
(Houston) Texas ping
All I have to do is identify a need - like a way for you to get from point A to point B - then I'll get you to pay to have it built, then charge you for the use of it!
Oh, and did I mention who's paying my salary while I'm doing all of this?
Perry was a Democrat when Reagan was in the White House. I guess he had a “conversion moment” under the leadership of George HW Bush, or maybe Bill Clinton, or maybe it was that he saw Democrats finding it harder to get elected to top offices in the state.
Proof we can’t trust the professional polidiots.........time to flush em all in 08.
This toll crap is purest form of BS Texas Goobermint has ever left in the road.
The very most important thing to remember is that the legislature didn’t raise the gas tax in the recent session.
yes.
i lived in austin for one year.
and there were a lot of republicans in office that had been democraps.
Keep it up GOP because sooner or later you are going to turn this state over the Rats again. Wait till the get a chance with new taxes.
Keep it up GOP because sooner or later you are going to turn this state over the Rats again. Wait till the get a chance with new taxes.
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