Early battle looms over transportation bill

DFLers will propose a measure that includes tax increases, including one in the gas tax, to provide an infusion of money for the state's roads and bridges.

By PATRICIA LOPEZ, Star Tribune

Last update: February 11, 2008 - 5:40 PM

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not entirely true

luminous: for the MVST, correct. But it's not the MVST they're proposing to increase. It's the gas tax and license tabs, which as … read more mullens noted is 100% Constitutionally dedicated to highways. Nevermind that the gas tax is the closest thing we have to a road user fee: you buy gas to drive your car on the roads, you pay. Another thing: if we use bonding to pay for it all, what's going to happen when we run out of bonding capacity? If you want an answer, look at New Jersey. Lastly, property taxes in some locations wouldn't be going up quite as fast if the state was shouldering more of the burden for road construction than it currently is. Many counties are increasing property taxes to pay for road projects that the state (through the gas tax/license tabs) should be funding instead.

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A transportation bill that includes tax and fee increases of about $1.4 billion will be released Tuesday and could prompt the first real battle of the legislative session.

Senate Transportation Chairman Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, said the bill will contain a phased-in gas tax increase, license tab fee increases and a metro sales tax increase, generating a fresh infusion of cash for the state's road and bridge projects.

Murphy said that the details were still being worked out, but that the bill will be released Tuesday, the first day of the 2008 legislative session.

The Senate passed a similar bill handily last year, but the House lacked the supermajority needed to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, said that DFLers have been building a coalition of willing Republicans who would team up for a supermajority on the bill this year, but GOP leaders say no bill as rich as last year's would pass.

Earlier today, Kelliher and Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, said the transportation bill would have to pass into law before they would take up the capital investment bill, which is expected to pump nearly $1 billion into the Minnesota economy through building projects across the state.

Despite talk of cooperation, a basic dispute between the GOP and DFL has already arisen over how to pay for the state's backlog of road and bridge projects. Republicans want to use the state's bonding power, which would spread the debt across the years, while DFLers prefer a pay-as-you-go system that would use proposed tax increases in the transportation bill.

Patricia Lopez • 651-222-1288

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