A proposal to raise the gas tax to fund bridge and road repair and expansion is shaping up to be one of the early battlegrounds in the revenue focused legislative session that kicks off today. Louisiana Coalition to Fix Our Roads President Erich Ponti backs the proposal to raise the tax by six cents in the first year, and 18 cents total over 10 years.
“Steve Carter’s bill represents the preservation and maintenance of our existing system. There’s 14 billion dollars of backlog on our existing roads, and on and off system bridges. 60 percent of all funds that are generated will go to those projects.”
Americans for Prosperity State Director John Kay opposed a similar proposal in 2017 that failed to gain momentum, and says anti-tax crusaders will be back to stop this year’s push as well.
“The government has recently taken more via the sales tax and other taxes on citizens for the past three or four years, and it’s just enough.”
Kay says our roads do need more of an investment, but before the state considers a higher gasoline tax, it should dedicate the current 20-cent gas tax completely to infrastructure and not use a portion to pay for salaries within the department of transportation.
“Several cents every time you buy a gallon of gas goes just to overhead. All of the gas tax money needs to be invested in roads. There’s a bill by Representative Mark Wright that would do just that.”
Representative Carter’s legislation guarantees that all new funds generated by the tax would go towards our roads, and Ponti says there’s already a mechanism in place to ensure that money isn’t used for other purposes.
“The voters of Louisiana created a sub-fund, what we’ll call a lock box, to guarantee that any dollars that are invested in the lock box have to go to projects.”
The 2019 Louisiana Survey showed 69 percent were in favor of a five cent gas tax increase, but only 46 percent support for a 20 cent rise.
