HIGHWAY BONDS: WAITING FOR OTHER SHOE TO DROP

The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission's decision to issue up to $2.25 billion in bonds to build roads and bridges without additional revenue to pay for them can lead only to increased taxes in the not-too-distant future.

The commission has approved 58 road projects that will be funded with the first $250 million of bonds. Another $500 million could be issued next year and possibly $500 million the following three years.

All of this spending has been touted by Gov. Mel Carnahan and Missouri Department of Transportation director Henry Hungerbeeler as a quick fix. But no one in any official capacity is saying much about how all of the debt will be retired.

Even the commission chairman, Lee Kling, conceded in a meeting at Sikeston recently that he is concerned that Missouri is taking on all of the debt. Kling said the state can't afford to issue all of the bonds without increased funding to retire them. He said he would be reluctant to vote for issuing any more bonds without added revenue to pay them off.

Hungerbeeler said interest costs alone could end up being $180 million to $200 million a year if the entire amount of bonds were issued. And Kling said MoDOT might have to dig into the $900 million of annual fuel-tax revenue and other funds to make the bond payments. If the state must do that, it will mean even less money for future highway and bridge construction.

The governor's own Total Transportation Commission, a group put together to study ways to come up with additional funding for highways, had recommended a 1-cent sales tax as a means of generating additional money for roads and bridges. But neither that commission, the governor, the Legislature nor the highway department pushed the idea -- or any other means to generate additional road money.

It is obvious from the way Kling and others are talking that Missourians will be told that additional tax revenue will be necessary to pay off all the bonds either in the form of higher gas taxes or some other means of raising money. It would have been much smarter to come up with a way to pay off the bonds first.