MISSOURIANS DESERVE BETTER ROAD PLAN

JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri's roads are in disrepair, and our transportation system must be expanded. Investment in a better transportation system, if well-spent, will make our roads safer and enhance economic development.

These facts would seem to argue for Gov. Bob Holden's proposed tax increase for transportation, which was passed by the Missouri House of Representatives last week. The problem is that Missouri has a highway history fraught with broken promises, mismanagement and a complete lack of accountability.

Taxpayers were hit with a 6-cent-a-gallon fuel-tax increase in 1992 for highways. Extensive promises were made then about roads to be built. Today, despite the fact that MoDOT has 30 percent more funds this year at its disposal than originally projected in 1992, just 25 percent of all the promised projects have been built.

We need better roads, but first we must ensure that the highway department will spend our money well. Currently, the major transportation decisions are made by a six-member commission appointed by the governor to six-year terms. This commission answers to no one. Its members are not elected. More importantly, they cannot be removed.

Several proposals are on the table to transform governance of our transportation system to someone who ultimately must answer to the taxpayers. We must adopt one of these good ideas so that when the job is not getting done, someone will be held accountable.

We cannot possibly ask taxpayers for more of their money before we get our own house in order. Yet the governor wants to do just that. He wants $747 million more of taxpayer money every year -- the largest tax increase in Missouri history. His plan would be for a three-fourths-cent increase in sales tax, a 3-cent increase in the gasoline tax and a 33 percent increase in motor-vehicle registration fees.

Compounding the problem of a lack of accountability is the economic environment in which the governor asks for this tax increase. Our economy is slowing. Congress is considering a tax cut to stimulate the economy and avoid a recession. Missouri's economy is slowing as well, as evidenced by state income-tax revenue collections coming in well below projections. The governor has enticed some large corporate groups to support his tax increase, but they might feel differently if the tax revenue were coming from an increase in the corporate franchise fee.

In any economic downturn, a tax increase is dangerous. This, however, is the worst kind of tax increase, because it's regressive. Most of the money generated by the governor's proposed tax increases, approximately $553 million, would be generated from a state sales-tax increase to 4.75 percent from 4 percent. Although it also raises the sales tax on motor vehicles, this is not a tax increase that simply discriminates against car owners. It is a regressive tax on retail sales that hurts the poor the most, who are also the first to be adversely affected by the slowing economy. The proposal also increases the gasoline tax by 3 cents a gallon, to a total of 20 cents a gallon, and raises vehicle-registration fees by one-third.

In other words, let's fatten up the most inefficient department in state government by placing the burden on the littlest guys in the marketplace.

The governor has argued that all he wants to do is give the people an opportunity to vote. The problem is that the people are likely to vote no. A public outcry against a transportation measure, like this one, placed on the ballot would make passage of a more sensible plan harder to accomplish in the future.

The governor has succeeded in getting a $747 million tax increase through the House without accountability measures and without a highway plan. If he gets his way, the Missouri Department of Transportation will have a new pot of the taxpayers' money and no promises to break.

We need a better plan, better timing, more accountability and less regressive taxation, and we will get better, safer roads.

Catherine L. Hanaway of Des Peres, Mo., is the state representative from the 87th District and the minority leader in the Missouri House of Representatives.