Gas Tax, Mileage Tax, Property Tax - Oh My!!

by Scot Walker of Collin County Republican

SB-855 has passed the Texas senate and is one step closer to becoming law. SB-855 is a bill that, if it becomes law, allows rail advocates to petition the county to create a ballot initiative where the public votes on new taxes that are supposed to go to rail and roads (mostly rail). You can read about what SB-855 is and why it's a sham here.

As I figured would happen, SB-855 is no longer a bill about only the DFW suburbs. Politicians doing what politicians do – which is to lunge for as much tax revenue as they can get their hands on – have expanded the scope of the bill. It was initially passed by transportation committees as a bill for the North Texas region. No longer. This bill now covers the Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Waco, Fort Hood, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville regions. Did the residents and committee members in those other cities have input on this bill? Of course not.

It never ceases to amaze me how naive some people still are in regards to taxes. You can look at California and New York and see that there is no end to increased taxes. And the taxes that are sold to the public to be used for one thing are always used for other things. The public is always lied to.

We are paying taxes right now for roads, but these taxes are being used for purposes outside of transportation, so they supposedly don't have enough money for the roads. So they want to create new taxes "just for roads and rail". But, of course, these new taxes will only go to roads and rail. Yeah, sure. Screw me once, shame on you...

This state should use the existing gas and vehicle registration taxes only for roads and rail.

What's more troubling about this bill is the lack of transparency. The ballots that the public will be voting on won't be separated for capital costs, ongoing maintenance and operations taxes. We want to keep the public ignorant of the actual costs when they are voting on new taxes. We want to mislead them. We want to use wording that gets the most votes for the new tax.

If the new taxes raise more money than needed, there is no method for returning the excess funds.

The bill doesn't require agencies receiving the funds to post their check registries online for the public to see.

It does not provide authority for the Comptroller or the State Auditor to review their books. Think about DART and their billion-dollar accounting error. There has been no outside audit for that debacle. Where did your money go? Who knows?

This is outrageous. I don't know about you, but I have had enough of my tax dollars being thrown in the ditch and politicians shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Oh well, sorry."

During budget surpluses, politicians don't cut spending, they raise it at phenomenal rates because of the increased revenue. During deficits, they still don't cut spending. Their reaction to a decrease in revenue is to raise taxes. And the cycle continues.

Another nice change to the bill is the $1 parking fee (tax) has been doubled to $2.

Texas is a Red state and we are much better off during this recession than places like California because of our Red state policies. This bill will lead to taxes being raised dramatically on the entire state, on poor and wealthy alike. Increasing taxes means less money in the hands of consumers to spend. The economy is 2/3rds consumer spending. The lower taxes in Texas is a big reason we have 6.5% unemployment while California has 10.5% and is why Dallas has the most Fortune 500 companies in the country.

And the lucky residents of Plano will be paying ~$60 million to DART every year but also get their car registration doubled and gas tax and parking fees increased. So not only will Plano be subsidizing DART, it will be subsidizing the projects for Allen, McKinney, Frisco...

There are many Republicans who have voted for this bill because it allows them to pass the blame for new taxes on the public. Please let them know that we will hold them accountable during the next election cycle.

Contact Governor Perry and tell him no to new Local Option Mobility Taxes.

If you live in Collin County, please contact Florence Shapiro and let her know you if you are more or less inclined to vote for her in the future since she voted yes on this bill.

Find out who your House Representative is and please contact them and tell them to vote no on Local Option Mobility Taxes. This thing still has to be voted on by the House.

Finally, it's just amazing that none of these politicians are even discussing if hundreds of millions for rail will be effective. It won't. It won't make a bit of difference on traffic congestion or air quality.