Posted on 01/25/2018 1:08:08 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
At a measly 17 cents a gallon, Missouris fuel tax is woefully inadequate to fund the states growing need for transportation-infrastructure improvements. The more the system deteriorates, the worse our states business climate will become. Gov. Eric Greitens could put some muscle into his determination to attract business and generate more jobs by embracing a long-overdue fuel tax increase.
The Missouri 21st Century Transportation Task Force, created by the Legislature and approved by the governor last year, proposes to boost the tax by a dime, and by 12 cents for diesel, which is only about half of whats needed to meet annual road and bridge needs. Business leaders told the transportation task force that the states aging and dilapidated infrastructure is reducing safety and constraining economic development.
Its been 22 years since the tax was last raised. Unsafe roads can and do cost lives. What does it take to make state legislators overcome their self-imposed, irrational ban on new taxes?
The American Society of Civil Engineers has given Missouris infrastructure a grade of C-minus, and the National Safety Council gave the state an F, ranking it last in the nation in preventable accidents.
The transportation department needs a fuel-tax increase of at least 20 cents a gallon to keep up with an estimated $825 million in unmet transportation needs. The last effort to raise money that got traction was a 2014 constitutional amendment to hike state sales taxes, with the funds going to transportation. A hefty 59 percent of voters rejected it.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Editorial: Fuel tax increase is the fastest, most direct way to meet state transportation needs
Or you do what California does: increase the fuel tax and have that money funneled away from transportation needs.
"...transportation department needs a fuel-tax increase of at least $0.20 per gallon to..."
Missouri's gas is so much cheaper than Kansas'. If their gas gets up to Kansas levels I will have even less of a desire to go to Missouri.
Baloney.
It goes into the general fund and the next day into a black hole.
Same with the toll money.
Ditto for the lottery money ‘earmarked’ for education.
You heard it here first:
Illinois is planning a Bullet Train!
Start the border war. Who wants go to Kansas?? Anyway it is interesting on State Line Avenue in KC, all the stations are in Missouri.
Watch it disappear into the politicians pockets!
No more Bike lanes, no more diverting funds for feel good crap and we can talk.
It's a rare breed that even stop to think on how to save money vs how to get more money from the people.
Illinois is already on the bullet train to bankruptcy.
Remember the Tobacco Cancer settlement to compensate “victims”...?
In Los Angeles nearly all that money went to repairing SIDEWALKS.
For those of you who are outside Missouri, the St Louis Post Dispatch is a very liberal newspaper in a very conservative state. They are always going to be for tax increases.
Politicians have at their disposal a deep toolbox of legislative fixes to overcome problems of urgent public need. They go by many names, but fall into only two categories. Taxation and prohibition. No other ideas ever get considered.
No it isn’t. Enough with the taxes.
My only caveat is, I feel safer in most areas in JoCo, KS than most areas in KCMO!
Raise the minimum wage then take it away by upping the gas prices!
EPIC SOCIALIST FAIL!
But hat what makes you think California is special in the practice, other than of course Moonbeam and the democrats shift into ludicrous mode buoyed by the Aztlanists in their party.
Dear Post-Dispatch Editorial Board,
Please provide a graph of per capita (per taxpayer) MODOT expenditures, adjusted for inflation, from 1950 though the present.
I know there are other states with high gas taxes, but I can't speak to the quality of their transportation systems since I don't live there.
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