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While we like Sen. Robert Nichols' bill, we love Rep. Linda Harper-Brown's bill, HB 479, better because it moves the vehicles sales tax money over to roads quicker. We can't wait 10 more years to properly fund our state highway system and end the practice of tolling everything, which is a $2,000-$3,000/yr hike in the average commuter's taxes.
Texas' top transportation lawmakers pick vehicle sales tax as preferred way to boost highway fund
By Tom Benning
Dallas Morning News
January 30, 2013
Texas’ top transportation lawmakers have now made official their preferred method for infusing the Texas Department of Transportation’s highway fund with much-needed cash.
Robert Nichols and Larry Phillips — the chairmen of the state Senate and House transportation committees, respectively — jointly filed bills Monday to dedicate to TxDOT the 6.25 percent sales tax levied on new and used vehicle purchases.
The proposal would allow the state to build up a large pool of money – up to $3 billion a year, eventually – to pay off debt payments, boost TxDOT’s maintenance budget and build roads, bridges, and other needed infrastructure projects.
Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said in a news release that any long-term solution must be predictable, constitutionally dedicated, transportation-related, independent of fuel source and automatically adjusted for inflation.
“The motor vehicle sales tax does all of these,” he said.
Added Phillips, R-Sherman, “What could make more sense than to dedicate the taxes that we currently pay for vehicles to the roads and bridges they are dependent upon?”
As we wrote last month, Texas’s $10 billion annual transportation budget is tight because the state’s 20-cents-a-gallon motor fuels tax hasn’t been raised since 1991 and because funds have been diverted to other state agencies.
Several ideas have been proposed to better fund highway projects: increasing annual vehicle registration fees by $50, ending the diversions to other departments and using billions from the Rainy Day Fund for a transportation infrastructure bank.
And Nichols has said his committee will entertain any and all proposals.
But the vehicle sales tax had long been pegged as a favorite, especially since Nichols unsuccessfully pushed the proposal in 2011.
The measure could again face resistance because it takes away money from the general revenue budget. But to address those concerns, Nichols and Phillips are proposing that the shift in funds would occur over a decade, 10 percent at time.