Well it sure didn’t take long for Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans to start talking about raising taxes and fees to pay back their benefactors from the road-building lobby.
Gov. Scott Walker’s transportation secretary on Friday recommended boosting taxes and fees by more than $750 million over two years to help pay for roadwork.
The proposal comes at a time when Walker and Republican lawmakers have said they want to find new money to pay for roads, but have expressed a reluctance to increase taxes. They are expected to spend the coming months debating how to fund the Zoo Interchange, Hoan Bridge and other major projects when revenue from the gas tax has been stagnant.
The plan from Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb includes raising the gas tax by restructuring how it is calculated; imposing a new fee on vehicle purchases; placing an additional fee on hybrid and electric vehicles; and transferring money from the state’s main account to pay for highways.
I look forward to conservative supporters of Gov. Walker reconciling his support for a tax and fee increase with his supposed “fiscal conservatism.”
I think this was inevitable. You can’t continue to reduce investments and expect to maintain quality transportation, education and a vibrant economy. Trickle down doesn’t work and never has. The upper income earners got a gift and the middle and lower income earners were left to pay the bills. We’re going to have a huge deficit before we ever get started in the next biennium, a direct result of Walker tax cuts. But, at least Wisconsinites will see what happens when Republicans have control. This and a dramatic change in the Democratic Party may likely make a difference in the next or following election. Let’s hope that’s the case.
I was reading a discussion thread on the JSOnline regarding this same story, and the Republican supporters were oddly silent. The only ones who popped in basically defended it by saying, “Well, this is just a proposal, it hasn’t been enacted yet.”
“Ever feel like you’ve been cheated?” is a question I think we’ll be able to ask Wisconsin Republican voters all too often over the next 2-4 years.