T here’s an easy way to fix Virginia’s transportation problems: Designate just 3 percent of the $80 billion biennial budget specifically for highways and mass transit. As Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, points out, that alone would yield $1.14 billion for transportation improvements each and every year — without raising taxes.
Marshall has been a lonely voice in the General Assembly when it comes to putting a high priority on transportation — a core state responsibility.
Mobility is critical to virtually every aspect of life in the commonwealth, but the Virginia state budget clearly does not reflect that reality.Quite the opposite, in fact.
According to the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, the state budget doubled during the last decade, but only $2.6 billion of the $17.5 billion increase was spent on transportation infrastructure, proof of just how low transportation has fallen on the state spending totem pole, despite a growing population.
Making matters worse, more than $1.2 billion was siphoned out of the so-called Transportation Trust Fund and spent elsewhere.
Yet Gov. Tim Kaine, Senate Democrats and House Republicans have not endorsed the 3 percent solution, even though it would solve the transportation funding problem. “If I were a psychic or clairvoyant, I could tell you why,” Marshall told The Examiner.
Here’s the brilliant ideas they proposed instead:
Kaine somehow thought it would be a good idea to raise statewide taxes by more than $1 billion while Virginians are already struggling to pay sky-high food and fuel prices.
Luckily, Kaine’s copycat attempt to duplicate Mark Warner’s “success” in imposing a $1.4 billion tax hike, without spending a cent of it on transportation, went flat as a tire on one of the commonwealth’s poorly maintained roads when he couldn’t even get members of his own party to sponsor it in the Senate.
Senate Democrats wanted to raise the gas tax 6 more cents on state residents who are already paying more than $4 a gallon at the pumps — while House Republicans were trying to pawn off on local governments the state’s clear responsibility to pay for transportation improvements.
Besides the fact that it forces Richmond to make transportation spending a real priority, the beauty of Marshall’s 3 percent solution is that it also provides more money for roads and transit than any one of these other harebrained schemes, without costing taxpayers another dime.
