The future of state roads
Say ‘no’ to more of them
The Republican-controlled state Senate is about to do something that is unthinkable in politics. Casting aside decades of tradition and the common perception of self-preservation, they are saying “No” to the state’s highway building lobby.
That’s right, instead of following the well-trodden bipartisan path of authorizing spending on new highways to curry favor from the powerful (and wellfunded) highway lobby, they are putting the interests of the taxpayer first. They are risking their careers to put road spending in check.
It’s a progressive idea that is positively LaFollette-like in its approach.
More to the point, this isn’t some political stunt. It’s a reasoned approach to overseeing one of the largest sources of spending in the state budget. And it could lead to resolving one of the most contentious issues that has hampered the state for years.
What the Senate GOP has recognized is that we don’t have enough money to build all of the roads that have been authorized or are on their way to approval, and to also fund the local roads that are so important to businesses and residents across the state. Since there is no appetite for new taxes to fund new roads either, something has to give.
In December, Republicans and Democrats both embraced a proposed audit of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation by
the Legislative Audit Bureau. They want to know why the state transportation agency is continuing to recommend the construction of new, wider highways when historic driving trends have shifted and people are driving less.
They also are questioning the forecasts of more traffic when state population growth is slowing. Why are local roads getting less funding for maintenance than at any point in recent Wisconsin history? Why are some other states — including fast growing states such as California — saying “No” to new highway expansion while Wisconsin, with much slower growth, is proposing new highway construction? Are there more efficient, less costly ways of addressing congestion and freight movement than simply widening roads?
Still, while that audit had very strong bipartisan support, it was the Senate Republicans who staked their support for new taxes on the outcome of the audit on the state’s highway agency. That audit won’t be concluded until the end of the year. Over in the Assembly, both Republicans and Democrats are eager to raise your taxes to build bigger highways. While they have cleverly disguised their tax increase as a local option to fund local roads, it will have the effect of freeing up more money at the state level to needlessly expand new highways.
Something of a showdown already has occurred between the Assembly and the Senate. In December, the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to increase borrowing by $350 million to build new highways. Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills, would have none of it. They voted as a bloc against the borrowing, saying that they wanted to see the results of a state audit on how the Wisconsin Department of Transportation justifies the construction of new highway projects. They lost the vote to Assembly Republicans and all Democrats, but the line was drawn.
Assembly Republicans are now poised to give the approval to a bill that would “solve” the transportation problem in a very traditional way: Throw money at it.
Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson) has authored legislation giving counties and cities the OK to raise taxes on themselves to fund the costs of fixing local roads. This ignores the fact that we are already paying gas taxes that are supposed to be covering the costs of local road maintenance. The shortfall in funding local road repairs is due entirely to the fact that legislators have been reallocating money intended for local roads to highway expansion projects favored by the Wisconsin highway building lobby.
Rather than cut new spending, this legislation will mean that residents will be paying gas taxes to build new highways and local sales and property taxes to fix local roads.
Enough!