BCT Editorial – 8/26/10

There are a few points to note about this editorial.  First, the editorial says, “A study recently estimated it would take about $3.5 billion annually to fully fund the state’s transportation needs.  The state has 5,646 structurally deficient bridges, the most in the country, and more than 10,000 miles of roadway in need of repair.”  Did you note what’s missing?  There’s no mention of funding mass transit systems and I suspect the omission was intentional.  That’s because the Times knows while many (most?) drivers would support more taxes for bridge/road maintenance, they oppose current plans because some of the increased taxes would be used to give even more subsidies to government-run, taxpayer-funded mass transit systems.  The editorial failed to note about 30% of the additional $1 billion/year collected by the increased fees/taxes mentioned below would be used for this latter purpose.

Second, the editorial says, “Rendell wants to raise money by going the conventional route - imposing an 8 percent levy on the gross profits of oil companies and increasing license, registration and vehicle fees to equal the rate of inflation since they were most recently changed.”  The editorial fails to note PA could have received some help by tolling I-80 if those involved hadn’t been greedy.  You may recall the U.S. DOT likely would have approved tolling I-80 as long as the tolls would have been used only for the “care and feeding” of I-80 as required by federal law.  That wasn’t enough for PA, however.  The Governor, General Assembly, and the Times wanted I-80 tolls to be used to transfer wealth from I-80 drivers to users of other roads and government-owned and -run bus systems like BCTA and PAT.

Third, it’s interesting the Times writes about “the rate of inflation” when it comes to fees and taxes, but ignores it when it comes to spending.  PA spending has outpaced inflation.  The 2002-2003 budget was $20.7 billion and the proposed 2010-2011 budget is $29 billion.  If spending increases had been limited to the increase of the CPI, the current budget would be about $25.1 billion, and instead of a $1 billion deficit we’d have either a $2.9 billion surplus or lower taxation, and lower taxation favors economic growth.  In other words, without any tax increases we’d have more than enough to cover the “about $3.5 billion annually to fully fund the state’s transportation needs” with nearly $2 billion left over to cut taxes.