Editorial

Case for tax increases will have to be strong

This year's Aug. 6 primary election will see a statewide vote on a proposal passed by the General Assembly to increase funding for transportation in Missouri. The spending plan is far less than the highway lobby sought -- they wanted $800 million to $1 billion. But the $511 million of estimated revenue the legislatively approved plan would generate was the most that could pass the Missouri legislature and remains ambitious, to say the least.

Voters will be asked to tax themselves at higher levels:

First, the motor fuel tax, would go up an additional 4 cents on top of the 17-cent state fuel tax Missouri motorists already pay. Any more than 4 cents on this levy and Missouri would risk becoming uncompetitive with neighboring states, which must always be a consideration. Second, the general sales tax would go up an additional half-cent.

Each penny of fuel tax raises about $28 million, for a total of about $111 million. The really big money is in the sales-tax increase, which would produce about $400 million.

A statewide debate has raged for at least a couple of years now on transportation funding levels in our state. This follows a decade of lost opportunities on transportation, during which the administration of Mel Carnahan never made it a priority to actually do anything to address transportation needs in a comprehensive manner.

This debate has taken place against a backdrop of finger-pointing and recriminations about the collapse of the so-called 15-year highway plan, adopted in 1992 at the time of the last 6 cent increase in the motor-fuel tax.

All this history, and the less-than-satisfying experience many of us have had getting answers out of the Missouri Department of Transportation, means the difficult task of passing a tax increase is made that much more difficult.

No one among backers of this proposal, which will appear on the ballot as Proposition B, should be under any illusions about the ease of passage of so large a tax increase.

The universe of voters consists, after all, of Missourians -- the point being that supporters will have to show us, with the greatest specificity possible, what will be done with the money. Missouri's transportation woes can serve as a metaphor for voters' frustration with a state government whose leaders too often want to spend their way out of any problem.

In addition, proponents of this tax plan for transportation need to understand that voters also will be asked to approve local tax issues this year, like the proposed increase in city sales tax in Cape Girardeau. Those voters will be doubly hard to convince that more taxes are the answer. This means the arguments in favor of either the local tax increase or the state tax increases will have to be doubly convincing.

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