Transit panel urges gas tax increase

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Federal gasoline taxes should be increased up to 40 cents per gallon over five years, a divided special commission urged Tuesday in calling for drastic changes to fix aging bridges and roads and reduce traffic deaths.

The two-year study by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission is the first to propose broad changes after the devastating bridge collapse in Minneapolis that took 13 lives last August shone a spotlight on the deteriorating national infrastructure. Calling for immediate action, the congressionally created panel warned that "applying patches" is no longer acceptable. It said the nation risks tens of thousands of highway casualties each year and millions of dollars lost in economic growth.

"The crisis is now," the report said.

The 68-page compilation of findings and recommendations, which were supported by nine of the 12 members on the commission, is expected to re-ignite congressional and political debate over raising gasoline taxes. The gas tax has not been increased since 1993, and recent efforts by Congress to increase it have faltered, due in part to objections from the Bush administration.

The commission was expected to present its findings Thursday to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and to a Senate panel later this month, but House Republican leaders quickly said they would oppose a tax hike.

"A dramatic increase in the gas tax does not stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing Congress," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the top Republican on the House Transportation panel.

In a 10-page dissent, the commission's chairwoman, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, and two other members agreed with several aspects of the report but sharply criticized the proposal for higher gasoline taxes. She and the two commissioners are calling instead for sole reliance on tolls and private investment, which Peters said would avoid sending millions of dollars of new tax revenue to Washington that could end up as congressional pork.

A department spokesman said that Peters and two other commissioners opted not to appear at the news conference to avoid a public display of internal division.

Under the proposal, the current tax of 18.4 cents per gallon would be increased by 5 cents to 8 cents annually for five years and then indexed to inflation afterward to help fix the infrastructure, expand public transit and highways as well as broaden railway and rural access. The increase is designed to take effect in 2009, after President Bush leaves office.

Other sources of revenue could come from tolls, peak-hour "congestion pricing" on highways, freight fees and ticket taxes for passenger rail improvements, the report said.

"A failure to act will be catastrophic to this nation," said Jack Schenendorf, the commission's vice chairman. He contended the tax increase would amount to "less than a cost of a candy bar and a fifth of the cost of a cafe latte" for the average U.S. motorist.

"We saw what happened with Katrina," he said, referring to the 2005 hurricane that overwhelmed aging levees. "We don't want to see the transportation system to see the same fate of the New Orleans levees."

Commissioner Paul Weyrich, a Republican appointee to the commission and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, said he is philosophically opposed to higher taxes but decided to support it this time in light of the growing transportation problems.

The recommendations, if implemented, are expected to cost $225 billion each year for the next 50 years.

The commission, established by Congress in 2005, also called for the country to rebuild and expand its rail network to meet a growing demand for alternatives to congested highways and to promote partnerships between the public and private sectors at U.S. ports. Its report comes as state governments and several business groups called on Washington to raise gas taxes to pay for substantial transportation improvements. The Minneapolis bridge collapse also produced new calls for additional spending.

"The time is now to work together to find a solution to this complex problem," said John Engler, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, which is open to a tax increase but isn't formally supporting it. "The U.S. will soon be facing a competitive disadvantage if we don't develop a national plan to improve the quality of our infrastructure system."

___

On the Net:

Copy of the final report: http://www.transportationfortomorrow.org/final_report/

Transportation Department: http://www.dot.gov/

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115/ap_on_go_co/transportation_funding [link]

[jtormey3]

Here in Rockland County, New York, we’re fed-up with stone-cold anti-environmentalists threatening our homes with unrelenting commercial jumbo-jet overflights. We’re incredulous that an eight-term Congressman would support the already-failed, chronically-unsafe regime of FAA Acting Administrator Robert A. (“Bobby”) Sturgell. So our environmental group “Quiet Rockland” has called for the resignation of hard-core extremist conservative Representative John L. Mica (R-Fl.) from the U.S. House Transportation Committee and the House Subcommittee on Aviation.

It’s time for Mica to flake himself off from the American political landscape. His harmful transportation legacy includes the Minnesota bridge collapse and Alaskan “bridge to nowhere” fiasco each occurring under his watch. Mica’s bald plugs for the FAA and aviation over-expansionism are as tiresome as an “Apply directly to the forehead!” TV commercial – as well as hazardous to innocent American people.

Through long-distance cyber-contribution to the political process, ‘Quiet Rockland’ will afford every assistance to help the informed electorate in Florida’s Seventh District chip Mica and his cronies away from elected office in November. Any vote ‘for Mica’ would be a vote for Mica’s vacuous petro-plastic culture. Yet aviation safety and the environment require an approach far less inanimate, and one far more sentient and human. John L. Mica is incapable of anything so organic.

As career mouthpiece for the FAA and the rich aero community, Mica recognizes no value beyond the smell of spent jet-fuel and the crinkled-paper sound of a handed-over almighty Dollar. We embrace the wisdom of clean open space and peace-and-quiet, in lieu of further Mica-forced inhalation of fossil-fuel for the sake of someone else’s quick-and-dirty paper profit. The governmental function of objective aviation regulation must be reinstituted. The stewardship currently feigned by Sturgell and Mica must be scissored out. Costs of their ouster should now be for the airlines to pay.

Mica has been ‘kept’ in office for 15 years by a staid homogeneous constituency in northeast and central Florida. Mica’s 7th District includes wealthy businesses of the greater Orlando area, and others with a keen special interest in maximizing their own revenues by over-scheduling flights and over-saturating our skies. Seeking to protect only the living rooms of his well-heeled campaign donors from any airplane noise, John Mica meanwhile abuses his influence and position on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Aviation Subcommittee to further placate those same aero-loyalists.

Mica shills for the FAA and its would-be head ‘Bobby’ Sturgell, and even road-shows for Sturgell’s ill-conceived wasteful $53.5 million boondoggle known as the ‘NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign’ aimed directly at our homes in the Northeast. While Congressman Mica is Ranking Member of the Transportation Committee, what’s truly ‘rank’ are the Mica-extruded conflicts-of-interest while he purports to further the cause of air safety.

Replete with hypocritical chutzpah is Mica’s recent accusation that others in Congress played special-interest politics when resisting Sturgell’s late-year quest for a fast-track confirmation hearing as FAA head. That would be like Ike criticizing JFK for having a receding hairline. Mica doth project too much. His patterns are too easily read.

Though dimmed at the edges by the current opaque duplicitous FAA with which Mica regularly allies, crystally-clear transparent is Mica’s brazen pandering to wealthy elements of the aero-mercantile complex who got him elected and keep him in office. Parts of Mica’s Federal Election Commission list of political contributors at ‘ read like a ‘Who’s Who’ of aviation-industry operatives. Campaign donors include airlines, PAC-shielded FAA managers, and even failed former FAA head Marion Clifton Blakey herself. Mica’s own aviation machinations are as flaky as Blakey.

While the cue-ball with which Mica ran the political pool-table 8 times to date, will sink by November - that’s not soon enough. John Mica should step down from the Transportation Committee and Aviation Subcommittee for the sake of the safety of this country and all air travel within it. While many in the Northeast have considered moving to Florida simply to vote against John Mica in the next possible election, in the meantime Rocklanders today launch a website to similar effect called ‘.

‘Quiet Rockland’ encourages citizens interested in defeating those that would harm our environment and our homes, to please access that website. For too long John L. Mica has been provided a rug of cover by aeronautical special interests. It is now time for Mica to come out from under that rug.

[ballz2wallz]

So in order for the government to maintain things the way they should have been maintained in the first place, their solution is to tax us even more?!

[bheld]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

So in order for the government to maintain things the way they should have been maintained in the first place, their solution is to tax us even more?!

That's what happens when you elect incompetent people that start wars in foreign countries costing trillions of dollars with the side effect of raising the price of oil for cronies in the private sector.

Let's see, less money for infrastructure plus a spike in the price of a key input of asphalt. Why the incredulity?

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by bheld

That's what happens when you elect incompetent people that start wars in foreign countries costing trillions of dollars with the side effect of raising the price of oil for cronies in the private sector.

Let's see, less money for infrastructure plus a spike in the price of a key input of asphalt. Why the incredulity?

Oh yes, it all comes down to this 'illegal war'.

I am pretty sure this has nothing to do with the war.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Oh yes, it all comes down to this 'illegal war'.

I am pretty sure this has nothing to do with the war.

He is talking about government spending. Waging war is not free. It costs alot of money. Now we do not have the money to repair againg infrastructure in our own country because we are reparing it in Iraq. Had we not gone to war in Iraq perhaps the money would have been there to repair these roads and bridges without raising taxes.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

He is talking about government spending. Waging war is not free. It costs alot of money. Now we do not have the money to repair againg infrastructure in our own country because we are reparing it in Iraq. Had we not gone to war in Iraq perhaps the money would have been there to repair these roads and bridges without raising taxes.

You're assuming they dipped their hands into all the other budgets and left everything else high and dry. That's not how budgets work.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

You're assuming they dipped their hands into all the other budgets and left everything else high and dry. That's not how budgets work.

Well the other option would be to deficit spend even more. Without the war we would not be running such a huge deficit and a tax increase probably wouldn't even be on the table.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Well the other option would be to deficit spend even more. Without the war we would not be running such a huge deficit and a tax increase probably wouldn't even be on the table.

We've had record breaking tax receipts in the government from the IRS every year for the past few years. That's how we do it. And the deficit has been doing down a bit over the past few years. And we're not taking away from others' budgets...well, certainly not infrastructure.

This tax is stupid.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by jtormey3

Here in Rockland County, New York, we’re fed-up with stone-cold anti-environmentalists threatening our homes with unrelenting commercial jumbo-jet overflights. We’re incredulous that an eight-term Congressman would support the already-failed, chronically-unsafe regime of FAA Acting Administrator Robert A. (“Bobby”) Sturgell. So our environmental group “Quiet Rockland” has called for the resignation of hard-core extremist conservative Representative John L. Mica (R-Fl.) from the U.S. House Transportation Committee and the House Subcommittee on Aviation.

It’s time for Mica to flake himself off from the American political landscape. His harmful transportation legacy includes the Minnesota bridge collapse and Alaskan “bridge to nowhere” fiasco each occurring under his watch. Mica’s bald plugs for the FAA and aviation over-expansionism are as tiresome as an “Apply directly to the forehead!” TV commercial – as well as hazardous to innocent American people.

Through long-distance cyber-contribution to the political process, ‘Quiet Rockland’ will afford every assistance to help the informed electorate in Florida’s Seventh District chip Mica and his cronies away from elected office in November. Any vote ‘for Mica’ would be a vote for Mica’s vacuous petro-plastic culture. Yet aviation safety and the environment require an approach far less inanimate, and one far more sentient and human. John L. Mica is incapable of anything so organic.

As career mouthpiece for the FAA and the rich aero community, Mica recognizes no value beyond the smell of spent jet-fuel and the crinkled-paper sound of a handed-over almighty Dollar. We embrace the wisdom of clean open space and peace-and-quiet, in lieu of further Mica-forced inhalation of fossil-fuel for the sake of someone else’s quick-and-dirty paper profit. The governmental function of objective aviation regulation must be reinstituted. The stewardship currently feigned by Sturgell and Mica must be scissored out. Costs of their ouster should now be for the airlines to pay.

Mica has been ‘kept’ in office for 15 years by a staid homogeneous constituency in northeast and central Florida. Mica’s 7th District includes wealthy businesses of the greater Orlando area, and others with a keen special interest in maximizing their own revenues by over-scheduling flights and over-saturating our skies. Seeking to protect only the living rooms of his well-heeled campaign donors from any airplane noise, John Mica meanwhile abuses his influence and position on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Aviation Subcommittee to further placate those same aero-loyalists.

Mica shills for the FAA and its would-be head ‘Bobby’ Sturgell, and even road-shows for Sturgell’s ill-conceived wasteful $53.5 million boondoggle known as the ‘NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign’ aimed directly at our homes in the Northeast. While Congressman Mica is Ranking Member of the Transportation Committee, what’s truly ‘rank’ are the Mica-extruded conflicts-of-interest while he purports to further the cause of air safety.

Replete with hypocritical chutzpah is Mica’s recent accusation that others in Congress played special-interest politics when resisting Sturgell’s late-year quest for a fast-track confirmation hearing as FAA head. That would be like Ike criticizing JFK for having a receding hairline. Mica doth project too much. His patterns are too easily read.

Though dimmed at the edges by the current opaque duplicitous FAA with which Mica regularly allies, crystally-clear transparent is Mica’s brazen pandering to wealthy elements of the aero-mercantile complex who got him elected and keep him in office. Parts of Mica’s Federal Election Commission list of political contributors at ‘ read like a ‘Who’s Who’ of aviation-industry operatives. Campaign donors include airlines, PAC-shielded FAA managers, and even failed former FAA head Marion Clifton Blakey herself. Mica’s own aviation machinations are as flaky as Blakey.

While the cue-ball with which Mica ran the political pool-table 8 times to date, will sink by November - that’s not soon enough. John Mica should step down from the Transportation Committee and Aviation Subcommittee for the sake of the safety of this country and all air travel within it. While many in the Northeast have considered moving to Florida simply to vote against John Mica in the next possible election, in the meantime Rocklanders today launch a website to similar effect called ‘.

‘Quiet Rockland’ encourages citizens interested in defeating those that would harm our environment and our homes, to please access that website. For too long John L. Mica has been provided a rug of cover by aeronautical special interests. It is now time for Mica to come out from under that rug.

Not that I expect you to ever come back here, but what does this have to do with the subject? Are you just spamming this in as many places as you can?

[bheld]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

We've had record breaking tax receipts in the government from the IRS every year for the past few years. That's how we do it. And the deficit has been doing down a bit over the past few years. And we're not taking away from others' budgets...well, certainly not infrastructure.

This tax is stupid.

So GWB started with a surplus and quickly ruined our budget, but you're giving him credit because at least now we're going into debt at a slower rate?

[bheld]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

You're assuming they dipped their hands into all the other budgets and left everything else high and dry. That's not how budgets work.

By committing us to heavy deficit spending they weakened the dollar and now oil costs are spiking as a result.

[Spideynw]

What a joke. First of all, our infrastructure is fine. Second of all, I love how politicians assume consumer behavior would not change. A $.40 tax on gas would mean people would just drive less or find alternate methods of travel (more carpooling, move closer to work, drive more fuel efficient cars, etc., etc.).

[bheld]

Originally Posted by Spideynw

What a joke. First of all, our infrastructure is fine. Second of all, I love how politicians assume consumer behavior would not change. A $.40 tax on gas would mean people would just drive less or find alternate methods of travel (more carpooling, move closer to work, drive more fuel efficient cars, etc., etc.).

Our infrastructure is fine? According to whom?

[Spideynw]

Originally Posted by bheld

Our infrastructure is fine? According to whom?

I will have to find the information when I get home.

[bheld]

I hope the American Society of Civil Engineers is considered to be a good source.

Infrastructure Report Card 2005

and before anybody says anything, they don't release an annual report card.

[Spideynw]

Originally Posted by bheld

I hope the American Society of Civil Engineers is considered to be a good source.

Infrastructure Report Card 2005

and before anybody says anything, they don't release an annual report card.

Of course they are going to claim our roads are in aweful disrepair! Their jobs depend on it.

Regardless, even if they are in disrepair, the way to fix it is to privatize them, not raise more taxes.

[bheld]

Originally Posted by Spideynw

Of course they are going to claim our roads are in aweful disrepair! Their jobs depend on it.

Regardless, even if they are in disrepair, the way to fix it is to privatize them, not raise more taxes.

Who are we going to get an accurate assessment from then? The Weekly Standard? The Chimney Safety Institute of America? Goldman Sachs?

Privatization is not a silver bullet. You can't sweep in and say it's the way to go without giving some reason why selling our roads to a grab-bag of corporations is going to serve the public better.