Our View

Our View

State still looking for secret formula to highway funding

One, if not the hottest political hot potatoes during this session of the Legislature is coming up with $240 million a year to add to the nearly $440 million annually that the “cash starved” Arkansas Highway Department claims it needs to keep pace with the multitude of highway projects.

As we’ve repeatedly pointed out time and time again, skittish politicians have been kicking this can down the road for several years afraid to be blamed for dumping higher gas taxes on their constituents.

Oh, there have been many other suggestions and alternatives to just raising the gas taxes, which by the way, now amounts to 40.4 cents per gallon of gasoline.

Already, and just days into this session, State Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, is wasting no time sticking his political neck out on the issue by introducing two separate bills that he says will raise the additional $240 million annually by not only adding another five or six cents to a gallon of gasoline but also transferring some existing general revenue from the state coffers.

We suppose that tax money would come from revenue collected from vehicle related taxes and fees such as vehicle registration fees, fees for licenses and tags, sales taxes on new and used vehicles, taxes applied to automobile repairs and taxes on tires and vehicle repairs.

This isn’t the first time Douglas has attempted to tackle this highway funding issue, and in fact, in 2015 he introduced legislation that would have transferred state general revenue to road construction. As we all know his efforts were not only shot down but he was told then by Gov. Asa Hutchinson he would never support transferring money from the general fund into the highway department’s coffers. And, Hutchinson made it clear to Douglas this time that he hasn’t changed his mind whatsoever.

In response Douglas said he is just “putting something out there,” and “We’re going to get the conversation started. We’re not going to wait until the end of the session to talk highways. We’re going to talk it now and get something done for highways.

What Hutchinson wants to do as well as many of the other politicians is dump this political hot potato in the laps of Arkansas voters and let them decide and take the blame for the consequences of their actions.

Let’s face the fact this is a politician’s way of not ticking off his or her constituents and jeopardizing his or her political future, or commit political suicide.

Arkansas, like most other states, are dealing with an antiquated funding formula that is based on consumer fuel usage. Even though people are traveling more miles they are operating more fuel efficient vehicles resulting in less fuel tax revenues.

Listen, we all want our 16,000-mile highway system to be well maintained and we should all agree additional revenues must be secured to deal with decreased tax dollars coupled with the rising costs of road construction.

And as Douglas pointed out when he introduced these bills they were meant to be the starting point of compromise, and let’s support the idea of not just relying on raising the fuel taxes but also look at other non-taxing sources along with reviewing how existing highways are being utilized.