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Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts follow the trend: voters support transportation revenue increases
As voters have been proving over and over during primary season this year, raising taxes or fees for transportation isn’t a political death sentence – no matter the party or political affiliation. In the past two weeks, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire’s state legislators faced their first primary since voting to pass bills to raise additional revenue for much needed transportation and infrastructure projects.
Wyoming voters reward elected leaders for raising transportation revenue
In February of 2013, Wyoming’s state legislature decided to stabilize their state’s transportation fund by passing a ten-cent increase to their gas tax. The state is expected to be able to invest an additional $72 million per year in its transportation system as a result. On Tuesday, those elected leaders faced their first primary election since the vote to raise the gas tax.
Congress postpones insolvency, but uncertainty still plagues the Highway Trust Fund’s future
The last-minute patch to the Highway Trust Fund that Congress enacted on the way out the door last week delayed immediate insolvency, but it hardly ends the uncertainty for states or addresses our nation’s long-term prospects.
Massachusetts is attempting to lead the way on a performance-based system for selecting transportation projects.
Last year, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a landmark bill to fund urgently needed statewide transportation investments over the coming years. But how will the state ensure that those dollars go where they’re needed most and can have the greatest impact? Advocates, state officials and other stakeholders in Massachusetts are in the midst of figuring that out.
Senate poised to take up House plan to patch Highway Trust Fund until Spring 2015
Sometime this week the Senate is expected to take up and vote on the House’s bill to postpone the insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund until May of 2015 via an array of accounting maneuvers to cover ten months of transportation funding.
Follow-Up: Maryland pols raise their gas tax, voters respond supportively
While the conventional wisdom is that voting for a tax increase spells doom for a politician, recent evidence from Maryland continues to show that state politicians rarely lose their seats when they vote for a gas tax hike.
Representative Dina Titus announces bill promoting greater local control at Las Vegas event
At a press conference yesterday in Las Vegas, Rep. Dina Titus introduced her constituents to her bipartisan bill to give local communities across the country greater access to federal transportation funds.
Favorable responses and coverage for the bipartisan Senate plan to raise the gas tax
As soon as Senators Murphy and Corker introduced their bipartisan plan yesterday to raise the gas tax by 12 cents, supportive statements starting flowing in and media outlets quickly picked up the news.
Governing Mag on the compelling case for more local access to transportation dollars
As the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund looms over the nation’s transportation projects, more and more local leaders are asking for the chance to be heard when it comes to doling out federal transportation money.
A closer look at Rep. DeFazio’s bid to replace the gas tax with an oil fee
With the Highway Trust Fund rushing toward insolvency, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) this week stepped up by proposing a policy to address this issue by replacing the gasoline pump tax with a per-barrel oil fee and indexation of the diesel tax that together is sufficient to keep the federal program solvent.
In state elections, voters decline to punish pols for raising transportation taxes
Raising the gas tax is a political death sentence, right? Well, not necessarily. In at least two states where legislators raised gas taxes or other fees in the last two years, voters have responded by sending almost all of the supportive members of both parties back to their state houses. Could it be that voters are more supportive of raising revenue than we think?
Transportation funding: summer’s biggest blockbuster
Suddenly, transportation funding is the topic de jour.
Finally, a bill to give locals more access to their federal transportation dollars
Most taxpayers would agree that the level of government closest to the people should have more control over how transportation dollars get spent in their local communities. Yet local cities, towns and counties control less than 15 percent of all federal transportation dollars.
In Senate hearing, local officials stand up for greater access to federal funds
Now that the Environment and Public Works Committee has passed the highway title of the Senate’s next transportation bill, attention shifts to three other committees writing remaining portions of the bill. Last week the Commerce Committee held a hearing on “local perspectives on moving America”, including testimony from T4America’s John Robert Smith, the former mayor of Meridian, MS.
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