Not that it wasn’t glaringly obvious already, but the Texas Department of Transportation is in some serious debt. Nearly $18 billion worth, to be more exact. And it looks like things are just going to get worse–for the next few years, at least. But what can be done about it? Surprisingly, even some conservatives are saying we should raise taxes.
In reality, though, it seems like that’s the only thing that can be done. Sure, we’ve got toll roads popping up all over the place, but those cost a lot of money to build–and thus, a long time to pay off solely with toll revenue. Lawmakers are ready to cut funding, but they’re a big part of the problem for allowing TxDOT to get this far into debt in the first place by funding new construction that couldn’t be paid for with cash.
To make it even worse, many of these same lawmakers are totally opposed to any tax increase whatsoever. But with Texas’ growing population comes a growing infrastructure need, which has to be paid for somehow. And constructing new toll roads is definitely not a short-term answer.
The situation is so dire that even some fiscal conservatives, such as Senator Kevin Eltife, suggest that raising taxes would actually be the conservative thing to do. He suggests a 10-cent-per-gallon fuel tax increase, which some lawmakers are completely opposed to, even though the Texas fuel tax rate hasn’t increased from 20 cents a gallon in 1991.
Anything has to be better than wallowing in debt, though.
There’s a proposal to raise annual car registration fees by $50 to raise money for roads. Since well call it a fee, rather than a tax, that somehow makes it better. For someone getting an average of 20 miles per gallon (close to the average), and driving 10,000 miles per year (close to the average) the annual cost of an extra 10 cents per gallon would be $50. The difference is that everyone pays the same extra amount if we raise the fee, whether they drive 100 miles per day or 100 miles per year, while if we raise the tax, the ones who use the roads more would pay more. Also, if we raise the fee we don’t get any extra money from all the out-of-state drivers who use our roads. We just like to feel better about ourselves by raising something called a fee instead of calling it a tax (which is what it is, an annual flat tax).
On the matter of debt, I don’t know enough to present an opinion, but I do present a question. I know that sometimes delaying a road project can result in an enormous increase in cost. I’ve seen a few projects that doubled in cost as a result of delaying for 10 years. I have to wonder if going into debt to get a road built now, at today’s prices, is actually worse than waiting to build the road after we have the money saved, at the prices of 10 or 20 years from now. Maybe someone who knows more than I do will have some insight.
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