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Voters overwhelmingly re-elect candidates who raise transportation revenue, analysis of general election results shows

Continuing a trend observed in the primaries, an updated T4America analysis of November’s election data shows that 90 percent of legislators supporting revenue increases in ten states won their re-election bids. Perhaps that knowledge will help legislators in 17 states (and counting) considering similar plans take similar action this year.

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View our full page tracking and summarizing the data on these votes.

The conventional wisdom has been that supporting any sort of tax increase is a political death sentence, but recent data perhaps suggests the opposite conclusion — at least with regard to tax increases intended to invest in transportation.

Since 2012 at least ten states have done the “unthinkable” and either increased gas taxes or otherwise raised significant transportation funding through legislative action: Arkansas, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming.

Transportation for America has kept a close eye on those votes at the state level to raise revenue and the subsequent response from voters in the elections that followed. We first examined this data after the primary elections in 2014, when supportive state legislators won their primaries at an amazing 98 percent clip. With a full election cycle behind us, how did supportive state legislators fare?

  • A total of 961 legislators in these ten states ran for re-election after voting yes on a measure to raise transportation revenues by some mechanism.
  • 23 candidates lost their primary election, resulting in a 98 percent success rate in the primaries for those that voted yes and ran for re-election.
  • 939 supportive legislators reached the general election*.
  • 71 supportive candidates lost in the general election for a total of 868 supportive legislators retaining their seats.
  • The total re-election rate for supportive legislators who ran is 868/961, or 90 percent.

*1 Independent candidate (Adam Greshin in Vermont) did not run in a primary due to lack of party registration.

View our full page tracking and summarizing the data on these votes.

This encouraging trend could serve as a powerful object lesson for the legislators in the 17 states and counting currently considering legislative plans to raise the gas tax or other tax/fee increases for additional transportation revenue.

Rep. Blumenauer introduces plan to raise the federal gas tax

Supported by 23 cosponsors in the House, the Chairman of Transportation for America and a plethora of national construction, transportation and labor groups, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) alongside Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) introduced the UPDATE Act to increase the federal gas tax by 15 cents over three years and index it to the inflation.

John Robert Smith at UPDATE act event

T4America chair Mayor John Robert Smith speaking at a press conference announcing the UPDATE Act on Wednesday, February 4, 2015.

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon following the bill’s (HR 680) introduction earlier this week, Rep. Blumenauer referred to the complicated plans to raise one-time revenue for transportation through corporate tax reform or repatriation of overseas profits and noted that raising the gas tax is “the simplest, easiest to pass, and the only one giving long term stability.”

His plan is certainly the simplest to understand: an increase of five cents in the federal tax on gasoline and diesel for three consecutive years, and then setting it to rise or fall with inflation. Even without more fuel efficient vehicles or Americans driving less overall, inflation has eroded more than a third of the gas tax’s buying power over the past two decades. This plan puts the onus to pay for improved transportation systems on those that use them each day, reinforcing the principle of the users paying for the system.

While all of the 23 cosponsors so far are Democrats and many House GOP leaders have ruled out a gas tax increase, plans like this (or other similar plans to raise revenue) don’t have to be a political third rail. T4America co-chair Mayor John Robert Smith spoke directly to that point at the press conference today:

“When you analyze the election results from the 10 states that raised revenue for transportation since 2012, 98% of those legislators who voted in favor of raising revenue for transportation were re-elected in their next primary. That’s worth repeating, 98% of legislators who stood up and led to raise revenue for transportation were re-elected by their constituents. That is a message members of Congress need to hear and their constituents cannot wait much longer for them to act.”

We do indeed need greater revenue to stabilize the nation’s nearly-insolvent transportation fund, but we also need better policies and reforms to ensure those limited dollars are spent on the projects that provide the highest return. Measuring the performance of our limited transportation dollars to better understand what our dollars get us each year would be a smart place to start. And a forward-looking plan to direct more of that money down to where it’s needed most would be a great companion to any plan to shore up the nation’s transportation funding.

Mayor Smith, as the former mayor of Meridian, MS, understands those challenges facing local communities well, and still hears about them regularly from his former colleagues.

“I’ve been in local elected office for 20 years and early on I realized people back home would be forgiving and will back their incumbent when they see them stand up and lead on issues essential to their wellbeing,” Mayor Smith said at the event. “In Meridian transportation is one of those issues. And transportation is certainly an essential issue for this nation’s wellbeing,”

“Every credible independent report indicates that we are not meeting the demands of our stressed and decaying infrastructure system – roads, bridges and transit,” said Rep. Blumenauer in his press release.

“Congress hasn’t dealt seriously with the funding issue for over 20 years and it’s time to act. The gas tax used to be an efficient road user fee, but with inflation and increased fuel efficiency, especially for some types of vehicles, there is no longer a good relationship between what road users pay and how much they benefit. The average motorist is paying about half as much per mile as they did in 1993. There’s a broad and persuasive coalition that stands ready to support Congress…we just need to give them something to support.”

We support Rep. Blumenauer’s efforts because it provides a long-term, efficient, and sustainable funding source that our local government and businesses can plan for and rely on. With the May 31 deadline of the existing transportation looming on the horizon and states like Tennessee and Arkansas already delaying projects or considering doing so in light of the uncertainty, it’s important that Congress act sooner rather than later.

15 issues to watch in ’15, Part I: Capitol Hill developments

Already, 2015 feels like it could be a big year for transportation, at the federal, state and local levels alike. As the year began, we thought it would be fun to identify 15 people, places and trends that seemed to be worth keeping an eye on the next 12 months. In some years, 15 would be a stretch, but this year we had a tough time whittling the list to match the number of the year.

We will roll out the list in three posts, starting today with five issues to watch at the federal level. The next two posts will cover “places (states and cities)” and “people.” We plan to pay special attention to these 15, but we will by no means limit ourselves to them. So tell us what you think we missed, in your area or elsewhere.

START stacked T4 feature

1. The federal gas tax and Congress – will they or won’t they take it on as MAP-21 expires and we face the “fiscal cliff” in early 2015?

You won’t hear more about any single transportation-related issue this year than the erosion of the gas tax, the future of federal funding and the expiration of the current federal transportation law.

The gas tax continues to lose value through inflation, more efficient vehicles, and the ongoing trend of Americans driving less. Policy changes aside, there’s not enough money to even extend the current law (MAP-21) for a few more years. Last summer, Congress had to pull out every trick in the book just to keep the nation’s transportation funding solvent until close to the expiration of MAP-21 until May 31, when MAP-21 expires – just in time for construction season.

Suddenly, though, with gas prices plunging, some members from both parties have indicated at least a willingness to talk about a gas tax increase to make up the gap between needs and existing revenue. One thing is certain: Congress can’t extend the federal program at anything like the current level without finding money from somewhere. There are literally no other options. It’s encouraging that this Congress appears to be ready to give that conversation more attention than the last.

2. National passenger rail policy could be the first major issue up in 2015.

Even before Congress takes up how to fund a multi-year transportation bill or an extension of MAP-21 in May, members are likely to debate the reauthorization of our nation’s passenger rail policy (including funding for Amtrak). Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, has declared a high priority on adopting the measure early this year.

Last September, his committee passed a version of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act (PRRIA) with a handful of positive changes, including stable funding for Amtrak. A key indicator to watch is whether consensus on those improvements persists when the bill is reintroduced in the new Congress, and whether action on this bill occurs in the Senate. After several years of House proposals that either made huge cuts to our country’s rail network or hearings that focused heavily on issues like privatization or the food vendors serving Amtrak, 2015 might just be the year we see a reasonable and responsible passenger rail law.

3. Implementing accountability: How will the U.S. DOT choose to measure congestion and safety?

Ok, yes, it’s a terribly wonky issue and will likely not take over the discussion around your water cooler at work, but this transition to a more performance-based system of transportation investment was one of the key reforms of MAP-21 and could represent a sea change in how funding decisions are made and our transportation system performs. This is the year when the new standards, and the requirements for meeting them, are expected to be set.

Signals have been mixed so far, though recent developments are encouraging. The first attempt at a safety standard was far too lax, and gave states and metros a potential pass on improving the safety of their transportation systems and survival rate of people on foot and bicycle. The feds heard the public protests and now propose more exacting performance to earn passing grades. The latest proposal on standards for keeping roads and bridges in reasonable condition is much better.

The real test will come this spring, when DOT officials unveil how they propose to measure improvements around the effects of roadway congestion (as well as some other measures.) Choose a method to measure congestion that only values free-flowing highway traffic at any time of day (even if the length of the trip is exceedingly long), and states could reward sprawling development patterns and longer commutes. Choose instead to consider how many people can enjoy a predictable commute to work and you’re likely to see investments in a range of cost-effective solutions. It might not seem sexy, but it is definitely one of the transportation issues that could have the greatest impact beyond 2015.

4. Will the much-loved TIGER grant program survive, and if so, in what form?

The TIGER program, designed to get funding to innovative projects that solve multiple issues but don’t fit into mode-specific funding categories, dates all the way back to the beginning of President Obama’s first days in office as part of the economic recovery package. Five rounds of grants have been handed out to date, totaling over $4 billion. The program was threatened in the last-minute budget dealmaking at the end of last Congress, but survived with $500 million for a sixth round of grants. Though funding drops by $100 million from 2014, it’s still $400 million better than what the House proposed for this year. The “cromnibus” budget compromise also dropped a House requirement to limit TIGER grants to highway, bridge and port projects. That means TIGER in 2015 will operate the same as the previous rounds, supporting innovative projects that take a multimodal approach and address needs as local communities define them, rather than Congress.

The big question for 2015 is whether the new Congress will include TIGER or something like it — a pot of money that is open to competition from local communities with innovative projects — in the next transportation law. As popular as it is — and it is extremely popular — TIGER’s future is unclear.

5. Local control and the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act.

We spent a lot of time in 2014 making the case for more transportation dollars, and control over those dollars, to be directed to the local level where a community’s leaders know their needs best and can make decisions accordingly. So it was a huge milestone when a bipartisan group of House and Senate members introduced a bill to do just that near the end of the last Congress. In a Congress where acts of bipartisanship were rare, it was encouraging to see representatives teaming up and responding directly to the pleas they’d heard from the mayors, business leaders, and citizens in their communities for more of a voice in the process of selecting and funding transportation projects in their communities. We expect to see both House and Senate bills re-introduced sometime early in the 114th Congress by Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Dina Titus (D-NV), and Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and we look forward to seeing the case for greater local control gain more momentum in 2015 and hopefully result in this provision’s incorporation into MAP-21’s replacement.

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Up next in 15 for ’15: The states and places to watch for transportation developments this year.

Tell the President to back a bipartisan gas tax increase

The steep drop in gas prices offers the best opportunity in years to raise the revenue we need to rescue our transportation trust fund and build for the future. And, for the first time in recent memory, leaders in both parties are calling for a gas tax increase to avoid foisting monumental repair and construction bills on the next generation.

Now is the time:  Congress and the President must seize the moment.

 President Obama is keenly aware of the needs. In just about every State of the Union address since he was elected, he has called for more robust investment to fix our aging network and build what we need to keep people, goods and our economy moving. But the President’s proposals to fund his vision have been short on specifics. And he has opposed raising the gas tax in a weak economy.

Today, though, times are better and gas prices sinking. This time, the President must use the Jan. 20 State of the Union address to say how he would pay for the investments he knows are needed.

 Tell President Obama to voice clear support for a bipartisan move to raise real revenue.

We know we can’t rely on the gas tax alone over the long term. Consumption is likely to drop with cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars – and people are driving less. We need to diversify our revenue sources, even as we broaden the kinds of projects we build.

But that transition will take years, and we have a huge backlog of needs from a long recession that took a toll on our ability to maintain and build our network. Our local communities cannot begin to afford to make up the gap on their own. It’s a nationwide problem that needs national support.

By May, Congress must adopt a new transportation bill and find the money to pay for it. To make the best use of those dollars, Congress must get more resources to local communities, and give them the latitude to do best by their economies and quality of life.

Now, while consumers will feel the impact the least, is the best time to act for a near-term fix. The President can either stifle the conversation from the outset, or add his voice to the growing chorus.

 Please encourage him to add his support, in the high-profile setting of the State of the Union Address.

GOP Rep. Petri joins bill to raise the federal gas tax

The Highway Trust Fund, our nation’s key infrastructure funding source, has been teetering on the edge of insolvency for the last half decade, with legislators from both parties unable to secure a long term funding source.

Rather than continue to stand by and do nothing, retiring Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) has decided to join Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, as a co-sponsor on a bill to gradually raise our current gas tax 15 cents to a total of 33.3 cents. That would be the first increase since 1993 when Bill Clinton was president and gas cost a little more than a dollar. The measure also would also index the tax to inflation to stave off future shortfalls.

On Wednesday morning, the bipartisan pair will host an event on Capitol Hill, accompanied by President Reagan – or at least his words and image., Reagan “spoke eloquently on the need for Congress to raise the gas tax in 1982,” according to a joint statement from the two.

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Representative Blumenauer quotes President Reagan on the need for an increase of the gas tax at a press event at the Capitol.

Representative Petri has long been a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the House side and has said for years now that Congress needs to address the constant deficiencies of the Highway Trust Fund.

“In the Highways and Transit subcommittee, we have held hearing after hearing where state transportation officials, mayors, governors, truckers, transit operators, economists, and experts in transportation policy have testified with unwavering support for a long-term, fully-funded surface transportation bill,” said Petri, after the last short term fix was applied to the Highway Trust Fund over the summer.  “That should still be our goal.”

Blumenauer has been echoing similar sentiments since introducing a similar bill last December.

”Today, with inflation and increased fuel efficiency for vehicles, the average motorist is paying about half as much per mile as they did in 1993,” Blumenauer said in a statement at the time of the introduction. “It’s time for Congress to act. There’s a broad and persuasive coalition that stands ready to support Congress. We just need to give them something to support.”

Although the idea of raising the gas tax polls poorly, politicians of either party would seem to have little to fear from their constituents if they make a good case for ensuring sound highways and transit investments. Since 2012, 98 percent of state legislators in a variety of states including Wyoming, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Hampshire who voted to approve an increase of the gas tax were re-elected in their next primary, our analysis shows.

When Senators Murphy and Corker introduced their bipartisan bill that would have raised the gas tax 12 cents over the next two years, Transportation for America’s director, James Corless, stated his approval with an urgency to find a long-term solution instead of short-term fixes.

“A return to stable funding will ensure that our states and communities can repair aging roads, bridges and transit systems and build the infrastructure we need for a growing economy. The alternative is to allow our transportation system to crumble along with an economy hobbled by crapshoot commutes and clogged freight corridors.”

Massachusetts vote a bellwether for efforts to raise state transportation revenue

In 2013, the Massachusetts legislature came together on an ambitious plan to raise necessary revenues for transportation, passing a three-cent gas tax increase as well as indexing it to inflation. Now, a year after the legislature approved it, voters on Nov. 4 will decide whether or not to repeal part of the package.

MA bridgesThough more than 20 states seriously considered plans to raise new transportation revenue since 2012, Massachusetts was on a short list of 12 states that managed to coalesce around a successful plan. The final plan to raise the gas tax by three cents and index it to inflation, providing an additional $600 million each year to invest in transportation, received at least a partial endorsement from voters this year when all but one of the legislators who supported it won their primary elections.

However, an anti-tax organization took issue with the move to allow the gas tax to rise with inflation and gathered enough signatures to get it on this year’s ballot.

About a third of states index their gas taxes to ensure that growing construction costs don’t result in a net loss of funding to maintain and build their networks. This has become especially important as declining driving and improved fuel efficiency are further reducing revenue from the fuel taxes that provide the bulk of transportation funding. (Question 1 on the ballot only repeals the indexing to inflation, not the three-cent increase, which will stay in place no matter how this measure turns out.)

Supporters of the measure argue that taxes shouldn’t automatically increase without legislative action. The flip side of that argument is that leaving them at a static level basically amounts to regular tax breaks in today’s dollars.

States have all the more reason to index to inflation given the declining contribution expected from the federal program, given a Congress that has not acted to raise the gas tax since 1993.

Kristina Egan, the director of Transportation for Massachusetts, offered further reasons to index to Governing Magazine:

[Egan] said requiring legislators to vote on gas tax hikes every year is “impractical,” because the state legislature focuses on transportation, at most, every five or six years. Because transportation projects typically take years to plan and build, she said, “having a predictable and stable revenue source helps us think ahead for which bridges we can repair and which we can’t afford. If you put that up for a vote every year, you’re undermining that planning process.”

Massachusetts has one of the oldest transportation systems in the country, and even with a focus on repair and maintenance, the backlog of deferred maintenance is outpacing the revenues that the current model brings in.

At an average age of 57 years, Massachusetts has some of the oldest bridges in the entire country, well over the national average of 43 years old. The average age of all structurally deficient bridges is an astonishing 75 years old, also well outpacing the national average of 65. Twenty-seven bridges have been closed altogether in recent years. According to state data, bad roads and potholes cost drivers $2.3 billion per year. Improving the ability of the state to simply keep up with these kinds of repairs is a major focus for the coalition of groups and organizations (http://saferoadsbridges.com/) opposing this ballot measure to repeal funding.

The state is still paying for the Big Dig, and nearly 100 percent of the transit authority’s fares (MBTA) actually go towards paying down debt service on the state’s transportation debts, making it a financial challenge to maintain and expand new service to meet the burgeoning demand in the growing metro region. (The Big Dig debt ended up on the “T” books a few years ago when transportation agencies were merged.)

Question 1 has been an issue in this year’s gubernatorial election as well. Republican Charlie Baker has been campaigning on repealing the indexing of the gas tax, and Democratic challenger Martha Coakley wants to keep the current funding system intact.

There’s a significant coalition statewide opposing the measure, including business groups, the local AAA chapter, more than a dozen mayors, public health groups, and others. As Rick Dimino, President & CEO of A Better City in Boston, wrote in recent op-ed (pdf):

Losing this money for transportation means that we won’t have adequate resources for critical investments that will grow jobs and the economy…The outcome of this ballot question will impact the day to day quality of life for virtually everyone in the commonwealth. The gas tax may not be everyone’s favorite thing or even the ideal way that some would want to pay for transportation. But the vote to keep last year’s progress in place should be an easy choice

The Massachusetts vote will be watched with great interest in many other states that have or are considering plans to raise new transportation dollars in 2015 and beyond. We’ll be watching the returns and will be reporting back here in detail on how Question 1 fares at the ballot.

Capital Ideas sidebar promoDo you live in one of those states that are considering plans to raise new transportation dollars in 2015 and beyond? Do you want to learn more about this campaign in Massachusetts and hear lessons direct from the MA campaign on this measure? We’ll have Kristina Egan from Transportation for Massachusetts on hand in Denver for Capital Ideas on Nov. 13-14, unpacking the lessons they’ve learned from their campaign to raise transportation funding in MA, as well as this effort to repeal it. Don’t miss it!

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 state revenue for much needed transportation and infrastructure projects.

See all the primary results in states that have approved transportation fee increases here.

Vermont passed House Bill 510 in March 2013, to diversify their transportation revenue by introducing a 4 percent sales tax on the price of gas. This raises the overall gas tax by 7.5 cents, though it put a floor and a cap on the new sales tax portion so that Vermont drivers will never pay less than 13.4 cents per gallon or a maximum of 18 cents. H.B. 510 also authorized $10.38 billion in bonds.

“It was not an easy choice to move in this direction, and we didn’t make this decision lightly,” said House Transportation Chair Pat Brennan (R-Colchester) said at the time.“ We explored anywhere between 15 to 20 different funding options, and we ended right back here every time.”

The measure passed 128-42, with 18 Republicans and 104 Democrats voting “aye.” Of the 15 supportive Republicans who ran again, just one lost in the primaries on August 26th. Leigh Larocque (R-Barnet) lost to Marcia Robinson Martel. All of the 86 Democrats who supported the bill and ran for re-election won their primaries.

Massachusetts’ ambitious H3535, enacted in 2013, raised the gas tax 3 cents and indexed it to inflation, while also requiring the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to raise a greater portion of their costs – up to an additional $229 million a year — through various avenues including tolls, fees, fares, and others.

In the heavily Democratic state, the bill passed 158-38, with 157 Democrats and just one Republican voting yes. All but one of the 133 supportive Democrats running for re-election won their primaries, with Rep. Wayne Matewsky (D-Everett) losing his seat to Joseph McGonagle, Jr.

(There is a footnote to these results in Massachusetts. A measure has been added to this year’s November’s ballot to reverse the legislation completely. One benefit of that is that, after these primaries, we’ll have another public referendum on raising transportation revenues put directly to the voters. It’s just one of many important ballot measures we’ll be keeping a close eye on here this November, so check back. – Ed.)

New Hampshire has a very similar story. In 2013, lawmakers approved Senate Bill 367, which increased the per gallon tax by 4 cents. The funds raised were dedicated to rehabilitation and bridge repair projects for the next two years. In the last version of our report on bridge conditions in 2013, New Hampshire had the eighth-worst bridges in the country, with 14.9% of all bridges rated structurally deficient. The bill also added bonds for the widening of Interstate 93.

The bill passed 208-150, with 186 Democrats and 22 Republicans voting in favor of upping the state’s investment in transportation. Just three of those supportive legislators running for re-election failed to keep their seats, meaning 98.13 percent kept their seats after supporting SB 367. 21 state legislators decided not to run for re-election for various reasons.

John Graham (R-Bedford), William O’Neil (D-Manchester), and Steven Briden (D-Exeter) lost their seats in Tuesday’s primary. As of this writing there is no indication that the transportation revenue vote was a primary culprit.

Among all states holding primaries after a transportation tax increase – these three plus Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Wyoming – supportive legislators have kept their seats at a rate of 98 percent. Voters clearly have been rewarding their state legislators who are brave enough to make the hard decisions when it comes to funding transportation and infrastructure.

All of the primaries this season in the states that we’re following have occurred, so we’re wrapping up this series for now. But all of these results are chronicled in one place now on our website, along with our page tracking all of the considered and enacted state plans to raise transportation revenue.

A dozen states have moved to raise transportation dollars, with more to come: Track them here

With Congress continuing to flail on providing stable funding, many states are finding they can’t wait and are moving on their own. But it’s not always as simple anymore as adding pennies to a per-gallon gas tax, so states are taking some creative approaches. 

You can learn about what 12 states already have done – and the political fall-out from it – with our revamped and refreshed tracker. You’ll also see what’s brewing in still more states.

With the Highway Trust Fund still headed for insolvency due to declining vehicle miles traveled and more fuel-efficient vehicles, states have increasingly been coming up with their own plans for raising additional transportation revenue over the last few years — and 12 states have approved plans to raise additional revenues.

Version 2.0 launching today has plenty of new information on these state plans with some comprehensive details on how votes broke down on successful bills. Perhaps most interestingly, you can see how voters responded to those politicians who supported plans to raise additional transportation revenue.

Want a hint about that one? How about this:

View “How do voters respond to state legislators raising transportation taxes?“

As we’ve been chronicling on the blog for the last couple of months, the conventional wisdom has been turned on its head with the recent primaries in these states — members of both parties supporting any sort of tax or fee increase for transportation have been winning their primaries almost across the board. With Massachusetts and New Hampshire primaries taking place Tuesday of this week (as well as Vermont just a few weeks ago), we’ll update the numbers on this page later Wednesday — numbers we don’t expect to change a whole lot.

This updated resource provides detailed information on and bill numbers for the current (or immediately recent) funding plans that were considered as well the 12 successful plans to raise revenue at the state level for transportation.

Click on through to see the full array of information, including tables with the vote results on the bills and results from the primaries for supportive elected representatives.

Did we miss something? Let us know.

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.

Maryland is one of five states that recently raised or modified their gas tax to raise more money to fund transportation and infrastructure projects. (Be sure to read our first post focusing on election returns in Pennsylvania and Virginia following gas tax hikes/changes.) While zero Maryland Republicans voted “yes” for the increase, we found that out of the 80 Democrats who voted yes and ran for re-election, 94% kept their seat in the June 24th primary.

On the other side of the aisle, 12.5% of Republicans lost their seat in the primaries.

Maryland follows the pattern set by Virginia and Pennsylvania that state legislators who vote for a tax increase – especially one specifically to raise money to invest in transportation – don’t face penalties at the polls from voters.

The five incumbents who lost primaries were all Democrats: Shawn Tarrant (D-Baltimore City), Darren Swain (D-Prince George’s County), Keiffer Mitchell Jr. (D-Woodlawn, Catonsville), Melvin Stukes (D-Woodlawn, Catonsville), and Michael Summers (D-Prince George’s County).

While a majority of those losses were theorized to be due to Maryland’s law of redistricting every ten years, some were also due to misconduct allegations, according to news articles about the races. A quick scan of the postmortems on each race doesn’t include any mentions about voting for the gas tax increase.

The Republicans had their own problems of redistricting and misconduct as well; in fact, the gas tax seemed to be a complete non-issue for this primary.

As primaries unfold in states taking up transportation funding, we will continue to update this story with more primary and general election results as they become available. As it stands right now, three states have proven that a state legislator can vote for a gas tax increase for transportation funding without fear of losing his or her job.

House proposes a trust fund Band-aid through May, 2015, with key differences from Senate

House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI)

House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI)

A House proposal to shore up the transportation trust fund through May, 2015, is a good news, not-so-good news proposition.

Late yesterday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) proposed a $10.8 billion infusion to cover a looming deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. The money for the next few months would come mostly from an accounting maneuver called “pension smoothing” over the next 10 years. The remainder comes from extending some customs fees and transferring $1 billion from the fund for leaking underground storage tanks.

The good news is that both Houses are now moving to take seriously the increasingly urgent warnings of insolvency coming from the Congressional Budget Office and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Absent action to transfer money to the trust fund, the flow of dollars to the states will be curtailed as much as 28 percent after Aug. 1.

The not-so-good news is that the recent hope for a speedy, bicameral solution seems lost for the moment. The House is taking a different tack from the Senate, whose Finance Committee had delayed its own proposal in hopes of negotiation a bipartisan compromise within both chambers. The Camp proposal covers a different time period – through May 31 versus Dec. 31 in the Senate – and uses different “pay-fors”. The differences mean it will be that much harder to reach a solution before the long August recess.

The other less-than-good news is that the proposal to extend into May of next year would reduce the urgency to address a long-term solution, such as the bipartisan Murphy-Corker proposal to raise the gas tax and index it to inflation. By extending only through the end of this year, the Senate deadline raised the possibility that Congress might move immediately after the election, in a lame-duck session where members feel less political pressure.

“While it doesn’t provide as much funding as I would like – enough to get through the end of next year – it does give Congress and the tax-writing Committees ample time to consider a more long-term solution to the Highway Trust Fund,” Camp said in a statement. However, Camp also indicated he is opposed to tapping the most readily available revenue source, the federal gas tax, calling it “just about the worst tax increase Congress could hit hardworking Americans with.”

The House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to consider the legislation Thursday at 10:00 a.m.

On C-SPAN, T4A’s Beth Osborne finds agreement with Heritage on HTF, walkability

Beth Osborne appearing on C-SPAN July 3, 2014

Beth Osborne appearing on C-SPAN July 3, 2014. Click the image or here to watch the full video

Our compatriot Beth Osborne engaged in a spirited discussion on gas taxes and the crashing highway trust fund this morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal. Her co-panelist was Curtis Dubay, taxes and economic policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Dubay took less of a hard line than have some of his colleagues, who have suggested we could wind down the federal program and make the states take on everything themselves. (As an aside, can you imagine the gory fights in 50 legislatures as they try to raise gas taxes as much as 20 cents a gallon to replace the federal tax, on top of state gas taxes, which some have recently raised? How many legislative sessions would it take, and how many would just punt and let the highways, bridges and transit go to hell?)

As taxes go, Dubay said, the gas tax is a “good one”, because the people who use the resulting system are paying for it. Most people agree that infrastructure in a primary government responsibility. He even agreed a higher tax might be warranted, but only if it is restricted to highway construction.

Dubay complained that the gas tax has been diverted to “non-infrastructure purposes” like subways, ferries and road safety projects that save the lives of pedestrians and bicyclists (and motorists). To which Osborne responded:

Transit is a form of infrastructure. The purpose of the federal program is to move people and goods efficiently, not to require that people move a particular way. From the driver’s perspective it’s just as helpful to get somebody out of their way, particularly [those traveling] short distances. And it can be cheaper to move them outside their cars. … We’re looking for efficiencies and good outcomes in the program. These taxes are being used to move people the way they want to move.

There are lots of good reasons why federal gas tax dollars should be used to build and maintain a truly complete network. Transit projects in major cities make the morning commute possible for drivers, plain and simple, because without it gridlock would be absolute. Federal dollars were used to build roads that cut through neighborhoods without providing for the safety of people walking along or across them, and need to be fixed. Ferries, in states such as Washington, are part of the highway system, connecting roadways across bodies of water. These are not “diversions” from our surface transportation infrastructure; they are key components that must be part of a complete system that offers fair access for all.

In terms of who’s paying the federal gas-tax “user fee”— it’s everybody. You’re not exempt if you only use local roads and no federal highways in your commute. The cost of transporting goods, including gas and diesel taxes, is in the price of everything you buy. In the name of fairness, our taxes should be buying the safest, most efficient, most accessible system possible for all Americans – well-off or poor, young or old, whether living in cities, suburbs or small towns.

Today, market and demographic changes are demanding a new focus for our transportation investments, and that’s because … well, lets give Mr. Dubay the floor:

The market is solving the livability and walkability issue. People are moving in closer to cities. It’s a generational shift… . They are not living in the suburbs as much as they used to, largely because people don’t want to drive like they used to. Having a car and driving isn’t as romantic as it once was, that’s for sure.

If, indeed, people are going to be living in higher concentrations – and they are doing so in both cities and older suburbs – they will still need to get around. What they will need is a seamless, fully integrated network. Many will still own cars and drive them when it makes sense for them, paying gas taxes when they do. They will hope that when they need to use the highway, enough of their fellow residents will be using transit that there is actually room for them on the road.

The local leaders we work with know this, and that’s why they are trying to save the nation’s infrastructure fund from insolvency and win reforms that give them the latitude to do what they need to do. We’re glad to see folks at Heritage acknowledge the changes, and we hope that soon they will join us in declaring an end to the days of the government mandating a top-down, single-mode approach.

Senate Finance Committee considers a trust fund stopgap, with long-term funding unclear

The Senate Finance Committee Thursday will take up a proposal from Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent through Dec. 31 with a $9 billion transfer from the general budget. The needed revenue would be raised by increasing the allowable tax on heavy trucks and four accounting maneuvers unrelated to transportation.

Chairman Wyden’s stopgap proposal would prevent the projected August insolvency of the nation’s key infrastructure fund and buy time until after the November elections, when Congress could consider a longer-term fix to the beleaguered trust fund.

Unfortunately, the proposal does not have bipartisan support. The top Republican on Senate Finance, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), has indicated he would like the trust fund fix to rely more on spending cuts. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who is co-sponsoring a proposal to raise the gas tax with Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), called the proposal “a complete sham” .

However, with the clock ticking toward an end of promised federal payments to states for their transportation spending, it is the only proposed stopgap on the table that would avoid idling thousands of workers and stalling key projects throughout the country. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, urged her colleagues on the Finance Committee to pass Wyden’s proposal. “I’m here to send an SOS to Congress because we are facing a transportation government shutdown,” Boxer today said at a press event.

Wyden’s proposal relies on accounting changes over ten years to amass the “savings” that would be transferred immediately from the general fund to cover the next several months of the trust fund outlays. The largest change ($3.7 billion) would require faster disbursement – and collection of taxes owed – on retirement savings of deceased account holders.

The only transportation-related source comes from raising the cap on the surcharge placed on especially heavy trucks, from $550 a year to $1,100. Set to take effect June 30, 2015, it would be the first change to the so-called heavy vehicle use tax since 1984 and is expected to raise up to $1.4 billion over the next 10 years.

Wyden told Transport Topics that he expects Republicans to offer several amendments at the committee hearing, set for 10 a.m. Thursday. “They indicated informally some rough ideas but that’s why we have opened the process,” Wyden said.

In the House, Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) of the Ways and Means Committee, with jurisdiction over the Highway Trust Fund, has said,  “There is no way tax hikes to pay for more spending will fly in the House.” Camp plans to mark up an extension of the transportation program and Highway Trust Fund after the July 4 Congressional recess.

In an encouraging bipartisan move, Senators Corker and Murphy last week proposed raising the gas tax 12 cents over two years, and offsetting that increase by making some current tax breaks permanent. Corker has said the offsets could allow other Republicans to support the proposal because it would not violate Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge.

Any such long-term solution for transportation funding – which we at Transportation for America certainly support – would have to come through Wyden’s Finance Committee, presumably after a stopgap such as that on the table for tomorrow’s hearing.

Raising the gas tax also would have to pass muster with the White House. In comments Monday, Administration officials did not rule out a gas tax hike but reiterated that corporate tax reform is their preferred pay-for.

“The Administration has not proposed and has no plans to propose an increase in the gas tax,” said White House spokesman Matt Lehrich. “It is critical that we pass a [transportation] bill that not only avoids a short-term funding crisis but provides certainty and lays the groundwork for sustained economic growth. So we appreciate that members on both sides of the aisle continue to recognize the need for a long-term infrastructure bill, and we look forward to continuing to [work] with Congress to get this done.”

Here, you can read a Description of the Chairman’s Mark, and the Joint Commission on Taxation’s Score (JCT Score) of the proposal.

Support the Senate’s bipartisan plan to raise the gas tax

A bipartisan pair of Senators says it's time to raise the gas tax. Let the rest of the Senate know if you agree. Take action.

A bipartisan pair of Senators says it’s time to raise the gas tax. Let the rest of the Senate know if you agree.
Take action.

After months of hearing from mayors and business leaders and citizens and people of all stripes who are worried about the looming bankruptcy of our transportation fund, a key Senate committee this week at last is taking up a temporary fix to the trust fund for the next six months. But Congress still must find a long-term solution to save our nation’s transportation fund. 

As we wrote about last week, two courageous senators have introduced a bipartisan – yes, bipartisan – proposal to save the trust fund for the long haul. Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) proposed raising the gas tax 12 cents per gallon over two years. It would be the first increase since Bill Clinton was in office and gas cost around a buck a gallon.

Can you send a message to your Senators asking them to throw their support behind this proposal? (Supporters in CT and TN: You can send a message of support to your Senators as well.)

Without new money to save the highway trust fund from insolvency, federal contributions for important transportation projects in your community would stop as soon as August and could shut down completely for the next year.

Some in the Senate are still talking about settling for a temporary bailout, rather than face our crumbling transportation program head-on.

Over the last five years, Congress has scoured the couch cushions to find $50 billion from general revenues to plug holes in the transportation trust fund. Meanwhile, the need for investment is growing as our population grows and infrastructure ages. Not only has inflation eaten away a third of their value, but gas tax receipts also have dropped with gains in fuel efficiency and a decline in the miles driven per person.

Most members of Congress have been afraid even to mention the possibility of tax increases, but as Senator Corker said, “If it’s something worth having, then it’s something worth paying for.” We couldn’t agree more. As our recent post on support for gas tax increases at the state level shows, voters may be more accepting of higher transportation taxes than conventional wisdom suggests.

Senators Murphy and Corker deserve great credit for their leadership and courage to propose a real fix to the transportation funding crisis.

Let’s let the rest of the Senate know that safe roads and bridges, better transit, and speedier commutes are things worth paying for.

In the meantime, T4America will keep fighting for more reforms to the system to ensure that states are held accountable for their spending and that more money flows to the local level where it’s needed most. But without any new revenue, there’s no need for accountability: Projects and plans will sit on the shelf.

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What do you think about raising the gas tax? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

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.

The day before the news broke, USA Today’s full editorial board weighed in on the issue and offered their preferred solution for rescuing the nation’s transportation fund: “Raise the gas tax.” They couldn’t have thought they’d see action quite so soon, but the very next day, as we reported, Senator Murphy (D-CT) and Senator Corker (R-TN) responded with a proposal that would do exactly that, raising the gas tax 12 cents to help provide “the trust fund with the stable source of income it so desperately needs.” More from the editorial:

The best way to deal with declining gas tax revenue happens to be the simplest way: Raise the gas tax. … The days of higher fuel taxes being a “third rail” of politics (touch it and you die) are long gone. In recent years, seven states have either raised their own gas taxes or imposed other fees that raise revenue. The political fallout has been minimal.

The proposal quickly made headlines around the country, from the biggest papers down to local blogs. Here’s a quick look at just a few of the responses to the Senators’ leadership.

RollCall
Gas Tax Is Imperative to a Robust Highway Bill | Commentary
With federal highway funding about to run dry this summer, will Congress vote to increase the gasoline tax to refill the Highway Trust Fund? It seems a long shot, but a bipartisan agreement begins with two – and two senators have stepped forward.

The Business Journal
Ready for higher gasoline taxes? Road projects may come to a halt without it
The gasoline tax hasn’t been raised since 1993, so maybe it’s time for an update. Plus, it seems fair to make users of the nation’s road pay for improvements. Congress has violated this principle for the past couple of years, taking $50 billion from the federal government’s general fund — thereby raising deficits — to make up for shortfalls in the Highway Trust Fund.

Washington Post
Bump at the pump? Senators propose a 12-cent hike in federal gas tax
A bipartisan Senate proposal emerged Wednesday to rescue beleaguered federal transportation funding by raising the tax on gasoline by 12 cents a gallon.

Streetsblog USA
Senators Murphy (D) and Corker (R) Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax Increase
There are several proposals on the table to stave off the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund (which pays for transit, biking, and walking projects too) in two months. Just now, two senators teamed up to announce one that might actually have a chance.

Associated Press
SENATORS PROPOSE 12-CENT GAS TAX INCREASE
Two senators unveiled a bipartisan plan Wednesday to raise federal gasoline and diesel taxes for the first time in more than two decades, pitching the proposal as a solution to Congress’ struggle to pay for highway and transit programs.

CBS News
A bipartisan push for higher gasoline taxes
The timing might seem a bit dubious, considering it’s the height of the U.S. driving season, and Americans are dealing with both geopolitical turmoil and the upcoming midterm elections.

MSNBC
A Republican who’s willing to raise the gas tax
To fix America’s crumbling roads and bridges, Tennessee GOP Sen. Bob Corker says he’s willing to do what’s become unthinkable for most congressional Republicans: raise taxes.

WBBJ Eyewitness News Channel 7 (Jackson, TN)
Corker proposes increase to gas tax
For the first time in more than two decades, federal taxes on gasoline and diesel could be raised.

Johnson City Press/Kingsport Time News (TN)
Corker proposes higher fuel tax to pay for repairs to highway infrastructure
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker pitched his legislation Wednesday to fix up the nation’s highway infrastructure by raising federal fuel taxes by six cents twice in the next two years and paying for the hike with provisions in the so-called “tax extenders” bill.

Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN)
Bob Corker eyes 12 cent gas tax to help shore up federal road funds
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on Thursday proposed a bipartisan plan to raise federal gas and diesel taxes for the first time in more than two decades as an answer to long-standing funding woes threatening to stall the nation’s highway, bridge and transit programs.

The Daily Times (Blount County, TN)
Sen. Bob Corker pitches gas tax hike
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker is part of a bipartisan plan to raise the federal gas tax by 12 cents over the next two years.

Laborers’ International Union of North America
“It’s Time to End the Pothole Penalty”
LIUNA applauds Sens. Murphy and Corker for their continued bi-partisan progress in the U.S. Senate to make our roads and bridges safer and strengthen our economy by addressing the failing Highway Trust Fund with a long-term, full-investment solution.

Senators unveil bipartisan plan to rescue the federal transportation program by raising the gas tax

Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) today announced their bipartisan plan to raise the nation’s gas tax by 12 cents over two years to rescue the nation’s Highway Trust Fund, which is headed for insolvency before the end of the summer.

Senators Murphy and Corker introduce their proposal to raise the gas tax by 12 cents and index it to inflation on Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Senators Murphy and Corker introduce their proposal to raise the gas tax by 12 cents and index it to inflation on Wednesday, June 18, 2014. Photo courtesy of Sen. Murphy’s office.

Unveiled at an event at the U.S. Capitol this morning, The Highway Funding and Tax Reduction Proposal would increase the federal gasoline and diesel taxes by 6 cents in each of the next two years for a total of a 12-cent increase. The taxes would then be indexed to inflation, so that transportation funding keeps in step with construction costs. (The federal gas tax has lost about a third of its purchasing power since it was last raised in1993.)

These two simple changes would provide funding to sustain current spending levels, plus inflation, over the next 10 years. The Murphy-Corker plan proposes to offset some of the increased costs to individuals by permanently extending a handful of tax breaks that benefit ordinary households.

Since 2008, Congress has transferred more than $50 billion in general funds into the Highway Trust Fund to maintain investment levels, and the fund’s spending is currently projected to outpace revenues by over $160 billion in the next decade. Just to have enough money to continue the program for next year would require finding an additional $18 billion before Oct. 1.

But now, for the first time in this Congress, a legitimate, bipartisan plan has been offered to solve the shortfall of the nation’s transportation trust fund. No temporary patches, no swapping funding between programs, no general fund transfer or accounting sleight-of-hand.

“Proposed short-term patches using accounting gimmicks have been all but shot down in both houses,” said T4America Director James Corless in our full statement released this morning. “Senators Murphy and Corker are showing real leadership – as well as concern for their constituents’ jobs and safety – by championing a long-term solution that recognizes the gravity of the situation and addresses it head-on. … The alternative is to allow our transportation system to crumble along with an economy hobbled by crapshoot commutes and clogged freight corridors.”

“By modestly raising the federal gas tax, we can address a crippling economic liability for this country—the inability to finance long-term improvements to our crumbling national infrastructure,” said Senator Murphy in the Senators’ joint statement this morning.

“I know raising the gas tax isn’t an easy choice, but we’re not elected to make easy decisions – we’re elected to make the hard ones. This modest increase will pay dividends in the long run and I encourage my colleagues to get behind this bipartisan proposal,” he said.

Senator Bob Corker, who certainly understands how important transportation investments are down at the local level as the former mayor of Chattanooga, TN, stated emphatically at the event that “if something is important enough to have, it’s important enough to pay for.”

“Congress should be embarrassed that it has played chicken with the Highway Trust Fund and allowed it to become one of the largest budgeting failures in the federal government,” he added in his official statement. “If Americans feel that having modern roads and bridges is important then Congress should have the courage to pay for it.”

As our recent post on support for gas tax increases at the state level shows, voters may be more accepting of higher transportation taxes than conventional wisdom suggests. And any move to stave off crisis and stabilize the federal program for the long term brings cheers from the local officials who represent home-state constituents.

“We certainly support Senator Murphy’s efforts to put our transportation trust fund on a sound footing,” said Lyle Wray, executive director of the Capitol Region (Hartford) Council of Governments in Murphy’s state of Connecticut. “We have seen two bridge closures in just the last two weeks on the Metro-North line, the busiest commuter line in the country. Repairing and replacing bridges is just the start of our communities’ needs. We have been doing all we can to stretch dollars and use debt financing, but we have gone as far as we can go without additional funding. Raising the gas tax is the best solution we see for stable funding for critical infrastructure in the near term.”

And in Franklin, TN, a southern suburb of Nashville, Mayor Ken Moore offered Sen. Corker — a prior mayor of Chattanooga — his support for the proposal.

As mayor of Franklin and chair of the mayors’ caucus of Middle Tennessee, I can say we have been supportive of raising the gas tax because we recognize this is what funds our highways and our transit, and we can’t allow our infrastructure to deteriorate. We have to stabilize the trust fund and provide consistent funding.

Middle Tennessee is the economic generator now for Tennessee, one of the fastest growing regions in terms of creating jobs. While that is a good problem, it creates a burden on our infrastructure. It’s important to make sure we have the certainty of funding so we can continue to support this economic development

As a mayor I can see the handwriting on the wall. Without this we will be tremendously challenged to avoid congestion and gridlock. The number one calls and emails I get are about traffic and congestion. I think voters will support it if they know it will go towards relief and supporting that economic growth.

So there you have it. The first legitimate, bipartisan transportation revenue proposal is on the table. Senators Murphy and Corker deserve great credit for their leadership and courage to propose a real fix to the transportation funding crisis.

We will have more on this proposal as we track its progress closely over the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned.

T4America statement in support of Senate proposal to rescue the federal transportation program with a 12-cent gas tax increase

press release

James Corless, director of Transportation for America, issued this statement in response to the proposal from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) to save the highway trust fund from insolvency and restore stable funding through a 12-cent gas tax increase over two years:

“Our nation’s key infrastructure fund is rushing toward insolvency. Proposed short-term patches using accounting gimmicks have been all but shot down in both houses. Senators Murphy and Corker are showing real leadership – as well as concern for their constituents’ jobs and safety – by championing a long-term solution that recognizes the gravity of the situation and addresses it head-on.

A return to stable funding will ensure that our states and communities can repair aging roads, bridges and transit systems and build the infrastructure we need for a growing economy. The alternative is to allow our transportation system to crumble along with an economy hobbled by crapshoot commutes and clogged freight corridors.

Phasing in the gas tax increase over two years along with extended tax breaks will ease the transition for consumers, just as the ensuing investment in a sound, working transportation network will ease travel for workers and businesses alike.”

In state elections, voters decline to punish pols for raising transportation taxes

UPDATED: July 14, 2014

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?

States are finding it more and more difficult to find funding for transportation and other infrastructure. The 2012 MAP-21 law kept federal funding essentially flat, even as the lingering effects of the long recession have left states in desperate need of infrastructure repair and renovation. Meanwhile, gas taxes are not yielding what they once did, thanks to rising construction costs, growing fuel efficiency and a drop in miles driven per person. With no other solution in sight, some states have concluded they have little choice but to increase gas taxes to maintain and build a 21st century transportation system.

In the last two years, at least seven states have done the “unthinkable” and either increased their gas tax or otherwise changed their revenue model to raise transportation funding: Maryland, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia. (For a complete run-down of state revenue moves, see our tracker here.)

With expected insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund occurring as soon as next month, its important that Members of Congress take a scan of what is happening in their states and districts. Of the seven states that raised taxes for transportation, Pennsylvania and Virginia have had primary or general elections since passing those bills. We took a look at how legislators who voted in favor fared in those contests to see if the mantra that gas tax votes lead to an early end to political careers is true.

In 2012, before the legislation passed, Pennsylvania was faced with transportation cuts creating worries of an increase of structurally deficient bridges under weight restrictions, road mileage rated in “poor” condition, and a decrease in transit service throughout the Keystone State. At the time, it led the nation in the number of structurally deficient bridges with 4,700.

Pennsylvania’s changes to fuel-related taxes and fees gave the Department of Transportation $2.3 billion to repair and maintain the state’s roads, bridges and mass transit system. The revenue package amounted to a 40 percent increase in the department’s budget, and created an annual $20 million statewide multimodal competitive transportation fund accessible to local governments and businesses. The measure passed 113-85 in the House and 43-7 in the Senate.

Of the 156 aye votes, 90 of the favorable votes were Republicans and 66 were Democrats. Thirty-two of the members that voted “yes” were not on the ballot for reasons such as retirement, seeking different elected office or term not yet expiring, leaving 124 “yes” vote members on the primary ballot on May 20, 2014. Of the members on the ballot, just 5 lost their primary, meaning that 96 percent of those who voted for the transportation revenue won their election. Just one Republican lost his primary Republican Representative Michael Fleck (R-Huntingdon) — but he won the Democratic primary through a write-in campaign. Fleck will be on the November general election ballot, but doesn’t have plans to switch parties. Four House Democrats did lose their seats: Leanna Washington (D-Montgomery) and J.P Miranda (D-Philadelphia), who were both indicted for misusing campaign funds; Erin Molchany (D-Alleghany County) who was re-districted and lost her seat to a Democrat who had voted No on the legislation; and James Clay (D-Philadelphia).

“Pennsylvania legislators showed political courage in voting for the transportation revenue package in 2013 to guarantee the state’s economy and overall mobility of the population would continue to prosper,” said Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Department of Transportation, Barry Schoch. “In return, Pennsylvania’s voters supported those that stepped up to the plate and took this crucial vote by supporting them in our primary election.”

In Virginia, legislators last year replaced the state’s 17.5 cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline — which had not been changed since 1987 — with a new 3.5 percent wholesale tax on gasoline (6 percent on diesel) that will keep pace with economic growth and inflation. It also raised the state’s general sales tax and gave the increment to transportation, and created a regional funding mechanism that boosted the sales tax to six percent in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and required those funds to be spent only on transportation projects in those areas. The measure passed 64-35 in the House and 26-12 in the Senate.

The commonwealth’s 100 House Delegates were on last November’s general election ballot, while the 40 Senate seats, whose elections are not staggered, will have their election next fall. Of the 64 House Delegates that voted for the transportation revenue package, 31 were Republicans and 33 were Democrats. Five of the “yes” vote members weren’t on last fall’s ballot due to retirement or seeking different elected office. No Democrats lost their seats and just four Republicans were on the losing end in their elections, including: Joe T. May (R-Clarke), Mark Dudenhefer (R-Prince William), Beverly Sherwood (R-Frederick), and Michael Watson (R-James City). Of the 183 elected officials who showed the courage to support necessary infrastructure in Virginia and Pennsylvania, just 9 lost their general or primary elections representing less than 5 percent of those who voted “yes” in these states.

As Wyoming, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, and New Hampshire have their primaries throughout the summer, we will be keeping tabs and will let you know if this trend holds true. But to this point, all indications are that a Congress facing a deadline to salvage our nation’s transportation program can safely follow state legislators’ lead on transportation revenue. In return, they are more likely to earn gratitude than ire from constituents eager to ensure a sound transportation infrastructure.

We recently published the results from Mayland’s primaries and the results following their gas tax legislation. 

U.S. DOT offers great proposals, but the program needs more money to make them real

The Obama Administration last week unveiled its bid to save the federal transportation program with only months to spare before most states and metro areas lose the majority of their funding to maintain and improve transportation networks – unless Congress acts.

While the Administration foreshadowed its priorities in its March budget request, the proposal – dubbed GROW AMERICA – marks the first time since the mid-2000’s that an Administration has submitted a full reauthorization bill to Congress. [See our summary of the provisions here.] While it stops short in some respects, the Administration bill is an important acknowledgement that we need not only to shore up the funding, but also to update the program goals and structure to support today’s economy.

In one sense, the $302 billion, four-year GROW AMERICA Act was drawn up by the people most intimately familiar with what is working, or not, in the current program – the DOT leaders who must interact with communities every day as they work to implement it.

Reading between the lines, they found that rigid adherence to funding silos for each mode does not work for today’s needs. They learned from the TIGER program that there were countless projects that could solve multiple problems for communities, businesses and freight handlers, but that existing, single-mode programs did not allow them to happen.

The first, critical, change the U.S. DOT suggests is to put all dollars for transportation infrastructure into a unified trust fund and shield it from budget fights such as the recent sequestration. During that budgetary debacle, some transportation programs – such as transit construction – were slashed while others were unhurt. Communities that are investing to preserve and improve the infrastructure our economy depends on deserve to know that all their promised funding is safe, not just some of it.

The GROW AMERICA Act would begin to infuse the federal transportation program with the promising ideas of competition and incentive-based funding.  While most funding under MAP-21 is distributed automatically by formula, the GROW AMERICA Act would establish several new  competitive and incentive grant programs.  One, modeled after the highly successful TIGER program but more than twice as large, would provide $5 billion over four years for competitive grants to fund projects with a mix of modes, including highways, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, and ports.

Another program – Fixing and Accelerating Surface Transportation, or FAST – is modeled after the Department of Education’s Race to the Top. It would allocate $4 billion to support incentive grants to states or metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) that adopt innovative strategies and best practices in transportation, such as creating their own multimodal trust funds or giving local governments more latitude to raise their resources.

The biggest problems with the bill come down to money. The Administration proposes $87 billion to rescue the highway trust fund and provide new resources, but has said only that the money would come from unspecified corporate tax reforms. While that one-time infusion would be welcome, it does not address the ongoing shortfall resulting from declining gas tax revenue. Worse, without the additional increment of funding, very little about the current program would change, because the most exciting proposals are layered on top of the basic structure of MAP-21. Meanwhile, the bill makes no provisions even to study or pilot future revenue sources, such as vehicle miles traveled fees.

These are just a few highlights of the GROW AMERICA bill. Read our summary for more details, and watch this space over the next couple of weeks as we take a closer look at some of the individual proposals in the bill.

In 2013, 20-plus states took up transportation funding: Here’s the final tally

Welcome to 2014! With a large number of state legislatures convening as the new year gets underway, it’s worth a look back at an important trend from 2013: States stepping forward to raise additional money for transportation. With federal funding remaining flat in 2012′s transportation bill (MAP-21) and after years of deferred action during the long recession, a large number of states, metro areas and local communities moved to supplement federal dollars with new revenues of their own.

In April, we reported that 19 states were looking at ways to increase their own funding for transportation. Some needed the funds just to make ends meet after years of flat or declining state revenues, while others also were looking for funds to match those available from MAP-21 new and updated loan and grant programs (like TIFIA or TIGER).

Here’s how they fared:

Key Successes

We covered Maryland’s ambitious plan on this blog, as well as Massachusetts.

Both of those states’ plans indexed the state gas tax to keep pace with inflation — something the federal gas tax, unchanged since 1993 — does not do. In Maryland, the state also added a sales tax on gasoline, while in Massachusetts, the package included an increase in cigarette taxes and certain business taxes. The good news was that in making the changes, both states recognized the importance of all modes of transportation and the revenues will fund important transit and road projects around the states.

In Virginia, Governor McDonnell began the debate with a proposal to abolish the per-gallon gasoline tax entirely and replace it with sales and wholesale taxes on fuel. That  brought together legislators from both parties, who developed an innovative package of revenue increases to put transportation funding on a long-term, stable footing.

New legislation raised vehicle fees, along with local taxes in two of the states’ most heavily populated areas, Northern Virginia (near Washington, DC) and Hampton Roads (near Norfolk/Virginia Beach on the coast). Recognizing that businesses, residents, and visitors to Virginia depend on many types of transportation to move around the state, the new law directs funding to all modes of surface transportation, including transit, passenger rail, roads, and bridges. The package is projected to have more than $9.5 billion in economic impact in the state. As the Gov. McDonnell said in signing the bill: “This legislation will ensure that Virginia’s economy can grow in the years ahead, and that businesses will have the infrastructure they need to create the good-paying jobs Virginians deserve.”

Most recently, legislators in Pennsylvania reached agreement on a package of tax and fee changes that will raise $2.3 billion annually for the state’s transportation infrastructure – $1.65 billion for roads and bridges and $475 million for transit. The debate went down to the wire with agreement finally reached in a special legislative session just before Thanksgiving, allowing the governor to sign the bill on a cold day in late November.

AP photo by Nabil Mark - Gov. Tom Corbett, center, signs into law a bill that will provide $2.3 billion a year for improvements to Pennsylvania's highways, bridges and mass-transit systems.

AP photo by Nabil Mark – Gov. Tom Corbett, center, signs into law a bill that will provide $2.3 billion a year for improvements to Pennsylvania’s highways, bridges and mass-transit systems.

The PA legislation eliminates the retail tax on gasoline and a state cap on gas tax paid at the wholesale level and raises various vehicles and driver fees over the next five years. The new funding will help to advance projects like the rehabilitation of the structurally deficient Liberty Bridge in Pittsburgh and of outdated equipment used by SEPTA.

Not all states that raised money recognized the value of investing across the board in all types of transportation to keep their economies moving. Ohio, Wyoming, and Vermont enacted tax increases intended for highway projects only. In Wisconsin, new bonding authority was enacted, with bond funds directed almost entirely to highways.

One positive outcome in Wisconsin: While the governor had proposed kicking transit out of the state transportation fund (similar to what the House of Representatives proposed in 2012), the legislature rejected that proposal and instead transferred general fund money into the fund (much as the federal government has done for its highway trust fund) to keep funding public transportation.

Try again next year!

Some states explicitly punted the issue to next year by creating commissions to report back to the legislature on transportation revenue options.

In Indiana, where a bill had been moving forward to allow the central Indiana region (which includes Indianapolis) to raise their own regional taxes to pay for transit, legislators instead commissioned a study on how to fund transit in the region. In November, the transit study commission voted in favor of allowing counties in the Indianapolis region to impose an income tax or business tax increase, if approved by a voter referendum, to fund regional transit. Reports like these help reinforce the notion — which we agree with — that regions should always have the ability, especially with the blessing of voters, to raise their own revenues to invest in regional transportation needs. We will definitely be keeping Indiana on our “watch list” for 2014.

Revenue proposal - ballot measures

Another state to watch in 2014 is Washington, where legislators negotiated on transportation funding through mid-December before calling it quits for the year. They promise to resume when the next legislative session begins in January. The current discussion is about increasing the state gas tax, with legislators debating items such as stormwater treatment, how to use the sales taxes collected from transportation projects, and funding for public transportation.

The need is urgent in Washington. Without any increase in state revenue, for example, the bus systems in the Seattle region are facing severe cuts in service that employers and employees depend on, along with fare increases.

A state we also hope will try again is Missouri, where a plan to raise $7.9 billion over 10 years through a penny sales tax passed both the Missouri House and Senate, but was then filibustered at the 11th hour when the Senate took up the package for a final vote. The fact that it was a sales tax was notable because in Missouri, as in many other states, while gas taxes are limited to only funding highway projects, a sales tax can be used for any mode of transportation, giving the state much more flexibility to invest.

Looking back

This movement we saw in 2013 is just the beginning. More and more states are increasingly looking for ways to bring more of their own dollars to the table, as well as making plans to invest in a range of transportation options. For a complete list see our state funding tracker.

The folks on the ground in these towns, cities, and metro areas know how important transportation is to their economic success. And keeping those local economies humming is key to our national economic prosperity.

Other states – and the federal government – need to take a page from their playbook and find a way to invest more money in transportation – it’s vital for our economy. One good place to start the discussion would be with our proposal to raise more revenue for transportation for the price of a weekly coffee and doughnut per commuter.

Budget deal avoids automatic cuts; focus shifts to appropriations committees

Barring a successful rebellion within one party or the other, it looks like Congress may have the first bipartisan budget agreement since 2010. That is good news for the economy, and it is especially welcome where transportation infrastructure is concerned.

Through a combination of fee increases, spending cuts, and other changes, the deal allocates nearly $63 billion to offset “sequestration” cuts – by half this year and about a quarter in fiscal 2015 – and to reduce the deficit by $23 billion. Most importantly for transportation, it provides the appropriations committees with the authority to adjust the funding levels within the new overall cap.

This flexibility opens the possibility of restoring cuts to transit construction projects under New Starts, to the oversubscribed program of competitive grants under TIGER and to Amtrak. Those programs faced cuts of at least 7 percent this year, on top of previous cuts.

Transportation cuts since 2010

The deal also includes a “reserve account” for infrastructure that gives Congress and authorizing committees permission to spend more on transportation and other infrastructure, provided they can pay for it either through cuts elsewhere or increased revenue – by, say, raising the gas tax.  This is good news, because, while it by no means guarantees positive action, the agreement at least indicates bipartisan acknowledgment that more investment in transportation may be warranted.

As we have explained in this space before, relying only on existing revenue from the federal gas tax would lead to massive cuts to highway and transit projects starting next fall.

That’s why we at Transportation for America are rallying local elected, business and civic leaders from around the country to a realistic proposal to raise and invest additional revenue. While one simple route would be to raise the federal gas tax to match inflation since the last increase in 1993, there are other, readily doable avenues available, as our proposal shows.

Raising an additional $30 billion per year – at roughly the cost per commuter of a doughnut and a coffee a week – would allow us to stabilize funding for the MAP-21 program Congress adopted last year and protect all modes of transportation – including New Starts, TIGER and Amtrak – from draconian budget cuts. At the same time, we could spur the innovation our economy needs to meet population growth and rising demand by funding competitive grants to local communities that come up with smart solutions.

The budget deal offers a glimmer of hope that members of both parties will understand what is at stake if transportation funding continues to be radically unstable. We hope that Congress can continue to work in a cooperative, bi-partisan fashion to address key needs like the impending insolvency of our federal transportation program.