Another Response to the Editor

A July 24, 2008 letter to the editor of the Chisago County Press (not available online) is posted here on this blog. The editor of the Chisago County Press responded to the original letter writer who made an excellent response to the editor on July 31 (posted here).

Here is an additional thought. The Chisago County Press editor complained that the state aid for road construction and maintenance in North Branch barely increased in 10 years. This was blamed in part on the merging of townships and cities resulting in a population of at least 5,000, making them qualified for state aid for roads. The Press editor argued the solution is to increase the gas tax. Consider another angle on this.

The state Constitution was amended in 1954 to give 9% of the gas tax to cities of 5,000 or more people (See MN Constitution, Article XIV, Section 5). Conditions have changed in the last fifty years. Perhaps the 5,000 number should be revisited and be changed to limit the number of cities receiving state aid or the state aid eliminated all together.

Cities smaller than 5,000 must pay for their local streets through property taxes, not the gas tax, even though they pay the gas tax just like those in cities over 5,000. What is fair about this arrangement? If a smaller city can and must pay for its local roads through property taxes, then why cannot it pay for them when its population exceeds 5,000? What is magical about that number?

Consider a city and a neighboring township. Residential development occurs in both. In each case, plats with streets are constructed at the expense of the developer. Maintenance, repair and replacement of those streets eventually become the responsibility of the local government, which pays for it through property taxes.

When these two entities merge and exceed 5,000 in population, why cannot the street work continue to be paid through property taxes without state aid? The street length stays the same. The tax base is still there. Why should the larger, merged entity now receive state aid for city streets?

I suspect some politician(s) back in the 1950s saw the opportunity to get state money for cities. People voted for the constitutional amendment without thinking about the consequences, believing that state aid is always a good thing. More importantly, the people thought it would not cost them—afterall, the state pays for it (not realizing the state has money only because we taxpayers give it to them). Furthermore, over time, more and more demands are placed on the tax arrangement that those voting for the constitutional amendment did not envision.

Now the state aid program is expected. Larger cities are addicted to it. Then when the state fund is cut into smaller pie slices, cities complain there is not enough to go around, which is a driving factor in raising the state gas tax, to fund the share that some cities receive.

The lesson? Keep funding as close to the local level as possible. Whether it comes from your property taxes or from the state gas tax, it is your money, but there are strings attached to the state’s money. Fight statism. Keep government as local as possible. That is a foundational principle of Republicanism.

Roads and the T Bill: Part 3

Conservatives are much in favor of a system of roads for reasons noted previously. However, we do have some more gripes which we shall continue to itemize.

Something is seriously wrong when lobbyists are allowed to line up their own transportation projects with the House and Senate. Engineering and surveying firms such as Bonestroo, Short Elliot Hendrickson, TKDA, bridge construction companies such as Lunda, road contractors such as Hardrives and Midwest Asphalt, and cities such as Minneapolis, St. Michael, and Ramsey County and Beltrami County all lobbied for the T bill.

The taxpayers do not stand a chance when all these special interests stand in the bread line to lobby for projects to ensure their bread basket is filled. These are hungry, greedy porkers, making sure the public trough gets filled to overflowing to serve their own ends. They have figured out the system and the taxpayers get fleeced. Who lobbies for the taxpayers?

How many legislators can resist pleasing these lobbyists in their district? Each time a legislator agrees, it is easier the next time until that person can be depended upon to keep filling the trough. And then the voters reelect those legislators because they "bring home the bacon," while failing to recognize they are working to keep other people making big bucks. Strip the pork out of this mess and we will have more transportation projects for the same money. Or we will have more money left over.

The I-35 bridge that collapsed cost $5,269,002 back in 1967. The replacement bridge will cost $234,000,000 plus a potential bonus. Recognizing that the new bridge is larger than the old bridge, yet it is 45 times more money in a mere 41 years. The cost of anything publicly funded far outpaces the cost of goods and services that working stiffs buy in the private sector. Government and many companies in the private sector that do projects for the government have hijacked the system and hold the little people hostage. We have become serfs.

Roads and the T Bill: Part 2

Correction and Update. Read below.

A system of roads must be funded. To buy a vehicle, we must pay a sales tax. To drive that vehicle legally on the road, we must pay a vehicle license tab fee. The driver of the vehicle must also be licensed. And the fuel that propels the vehicle is taxed, some of which goes to the state and some to the federal government. There are added fees for rental vehicles. The concept of a reasonable user fee is at home with Republicans.

These user fees fund our roads. The more we use the road, the more we pay. The more expensive a vehicle is, the higher is the sales tax and license tab cost. This does not necessarily translate into more use of the highway, so the progressive taxation idea is built into these taxes to hit the higher income earners more. The recently passed T bill increased all these fees.

The money collected is distributed by law. Phil Krinkie describes the arrangement in Minnesota. Krinkie says, "It started in 1920 with a Constitutional amendment to establish the state trunk highway system." (See MN Constitution, Article XIV, Section 2.)

Krinkie continues, ". . . in 1924 there was a Constitutional amendment passed to dedicate the excise tax on motor fuel (gas tax) to the trunk highway fund." (See MN Constitution, Article XIV, Section 10.)

"As the years passed," says Krinkie, "cities and counties wanted more state money for roads and bridges, so in 1954 another constitutional amendment was forwarded to guarantee cities and counties would receive a share of the state gas tax revenue with a defined split of 62% for the state, 29% for the counties and 9% for the cites." (See MN Constitution, Article XIV, Section 5.)

"Lastly, after a 20 year tug of war in the Legislature over whether the sales tax on vehicles should be spent on roads verses [sic] general state needs, yet another constitutional amendment was passed in 2006 to spend at least 40% of the sales tax on vehicles for transit and not more than 60% on roads." (See MN Constitution, Article XIV, Sections 12 & 13.)

These constitutional amendments govern how the collected taxes are distributed. After 55 years, is the set-in-stone split of the gas tax fair? Cities under a population of 5,000 do not receive a share (See MN Constitution, Article XIV, Section 4). Neither do townships benefit. These local roads are funded through property taxes and not gas taxes even though we small town locals pay the gas tax to drive on them. How is this fair?

Now that hybrid cars are traveling our roads, another adjustment must be made. While using the highways, the hybrid car does not pay its fair share because it is not paying as much gas tax.

Correction and update on April 16, 2008: A person added a comment to this post, indicating I had my facts wrong. In the following paragraphs, what I said about the gas tax, I should have said about the vehicle sales tax. I have corrected this by striking out the word gas and adding "vehicle sales" in blue. The point of my comments is still valid.

But the most aggravation has been caused by the legislature using collected gas vehicle sales taxes to support the general fund. Not all gas vehicle sales taxes went into roads and bridges. Funding for roads and bridges was more than adequate for years with the excess monies funding other projects in the general fund. The state did not need to raise the gas tax because there was excess. However, there was agitation to dedicate gas vehicle sales money to roads and bridges, which was not being done.

The legislature set out to correct this, to dedicate all the collected gas vehicle sales tax so none of it would be dumped into the general fund. That was a noble thought. However, with the latest amendment, roads and bridges came out on the short end. Instead of all gas vehicle sales tax revenue being dedicated to roads and bridges, a new category, mass transit, was invented. Now, by constitutional amendment, at least 40% of the gas vehicle sales tax revenue must be spent annually on mass transit. Roads and bridges receive not more than 60% and it could be less. There is not a shortage of gas vehicle sales tax revenue to pay for our roads and bridges. We did not need to raise the gas tax. There was plenty of money.

But, instead of dedicating it all to maintaining roads and bridges, we added a whole new category of consumption. Now mass transit consumes almost half of the revenue. How is it fair for the bulk of our state gas vehicle sales tax payers to fund a train they will never use? How is it fair that cities under 5,000 and townships do not receive gas tax revenue for their roads, but they must pay for a train?

Meanwhile, the Dems have been howling that they must have more money to repair and replace dangerous bridges. What a joke! There has been adequate money all along, even excess to use in the general fund. And then the Dems set out to divert gas vehicle sales tax revenue for a boondoggle called mass transit. Of the 5¢ per gallon gas tax increase scheduled for 2008, 2¢ of it must go into mass transit. Only 3¢ goes into roads and bridges. Of the sales tax we pay for a vehicle, 40% funds mass transit. And yes that amendment was passed by the voters under a Republican administration. There also was great confusion among voters about the wording of that proposed amendment on the ballot and I have heard many people who voted for it state their regrets. Here is a link about the constitutional amendment. A mere 7 point vote swing and the amendment would not have passed.

These are the issues that disgust conservatives. If the Dems must have a train or two or three, let the users pay for it, just like we users pay for roads and bridges. Transit riders will never pay for the cost of transit. The annual transit deficit must be funded from the general fund to cover costs. Thus vehicle drivers end up paying twice for transit–once through gas vehicle sales taxes and then through the general fund.

Is the gas tax solely dedicated to roads and bridges? Not according to this web site. Look here for their complaints.

Roads and the T Bill

Here is a reaction to Republican complaints about the $6.6 billion Transportation Bill as if Republicans are opposed to roads and want the transportation system in disrepair. Such a view is a gross misrepresentation of the conservative position.

Conservatives have solid reasons to support roads. Chief among them is our belief in private property rights which is foundational to the Bill of Rights. Consider the connection between private property and roads.

Imagine each of us owning ten acres of land without any roads. None of us could move off our property without trespassing on another’s. To visit a friend on a piece ten estates over, we would need to receive permission from each of those ten property owners. This state of affairs would require considerable negotiation to move about as well as enforcement to keep violators from crossing our property.

Public roads are the means by which we can move from our private property to another private property without trespassing or asking permission. Along with the legal concept of private property, we have developed the legal concept of a public corporation, whether that of township, city, county, state or federal entity.

All citizens of a public corporation can use the roads which are owned by that corporation. Because all townships and cities are political subdivisions of a state and all states are members of the United States of America, all citizens have the privilege of traveling on roads throughout the nation.

Generally speaking, humans are not hermits, but gregarious. Public roads give private property owners the means by which we can exercise our right of free assembly economically, socially, politically and religiously, which is acknowledged in the Bill of Rights. This alone is sufficient cause for us to have an adequate system of roads.

Roads enable each of us to engage in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, our unalienable rights given to us by our Creator, not government. Roads enable us to exercise our freedom, keeping us from being a prisoner on our own private property. Our unalienable right to freedom implies the need for roads that all citizens can use. That implies the need for us corporately to design a system of public roads that serves our unalienable rights.

Many of us blissfully traverse the highways each day with nary a thought about these fundamental concepts, concepts that should be common to Democrats and Republicans.

Conservatives have no intention of disrupting this time-honored interplay between private property and public ways. No Republican desires to go back to the township mud ruts of the 1950s. Any Republican would admit major sections of highway 95 in the county need rebuilding. County Road 20 has seen its useful life. Republicans are not interested in unsafe bridges that jeopardize life. Republicans do not take a back seat to anyone on these issues. It’s an insult to read a Democrat implying such and such a Dem has lost the argument before he gets started.

Wade Vitalis is correct when he ". . . argue[s] that public investments in . . . transportation . . . have helped create . . . wealth" (see Post Review comment section here). Roads give us access to free markets to engage in commerce. However, roads in the USA are not the king’s highways, nor the roads of a communist state, a socialist state or a democracy. They are the roads of a republic.

Democrats have forgotten this. Liberals have adopted an ever-increasing socialist attitude toward all of life, including roads. They revel in a top down nanny state imposition on the serfs of all things transportation. We Republicans aim to conserve the connection between private property rights and public roads in the context of a republic, in the context of competition in free enterprise. This implies we conservatives aim to have functional and safe roads.

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