Gov. Asa Hutchinson has prevailed on an important issue. The highway contractors lobby has dropped its bill to raid general revenues for highway construction.
As this AP report notes, Hutchinson was strongly opposed and has promised a task force to look for solutions to highway funding, harmed by the rise in more fuel efficient cars.
The governor issued a statement:
I made the case that now is not the right time for making significant adjustments in our balanced budget,. “But I do understand the importance of this issue, and I have committed to forming and leading a governor’s working group that will include all the key parties in an effort to build a consensus on highway funding for our future.
Hutchinson is dead right. The highway lobby griping that the issue has been studied before is right, too.
It is neither rocket science nor sorcery.
It takes more money to build and repair more roads, particularly those wildly expensive interstates pounded to rubble by interstate truckers who don’t pay their fair share.
You have two options:’
1) Raise the fuel tax, which on a dollar-adjusted basis is at a puny level, particularly against other developed countries.
2) Put a sales tax on fuel, an elastic amount based on fluctuating price. It would be a user tax.
3) Raid general revenue. If you do this, you punish others unless you raise the income tax or sales tax to offset the loss. Or you could always go to an increased sin tax for highways, though cigarette smokers and whiskey drinkers already bear a pretty stout burden. Gamblers could stand another percentage point or two, however.
But for now, stealing $35 million this year and a rising amount next year from schools, prisons, and human services was simply a bad idea. Hutchinson faced down a potent lobby, quietly and effectively. Give him another star.