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With little more than a month since the override of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of the $6.6 billion transportation bill, the public is learning more and more about the tangled web the Legislature wove.
First are the “two Minnesotas.” We have the Minnesota that gets to vote on a sales tax increase – 80 counties outside of the metro area – and then we have the Minnesota that doesn’t get to vote on a sales tax increase – those of us living in the seven-county metro area. Why don’t metro-area residents get to vote? Because metro-area county commissioners were lobbying to make sure there would be no citizen referendum.
Next, there is the fact that none of the quarter-cent sales tax increase will go for roads. What did I say? That’s right: Contrary to what most people believe, not one dime of the increased sales tax dollars will be spent on roads.
Wait, it gets worse – none of the quarter-cent sales tax increase will be spent on buses, either. So, you ask, if you can’t spend the money on roads or buses, what are they planning to spend the money on? The answer is, only new transit projects.
But before these “County Transit Bandits” could divide up their ill-gotten loot, another surprise came to light: The Metropolitan Council, which operates the metro transit system, wants more of the new sales tax revenue to help erase their projected $17 million budget deficit for next year. This operating loss comes on top of the $20 million supplemental appropriation from the Legislature in 2007.
Another one of the many tax increases in the “transportation” bill was an additional $20 dollar excise tax on vehicle purchases that will go to fund “only new transit projects.” Of course, that’s in addition to the 40 percent of the current 6.5 percent excise tax on automobile purchases that pays for (take a guess) … transit. That’s right, 40 percent of the tax on your car purchase, plus $20 bucks now, funds new trains. Part of the lobbying sales pitch was that this is “just a user fee.” But according to the Metropolitan Council less than five percent of Twin Cities residents use transit. Nonetheless all of us who own cars will be paying to subsidize transit riders. Not exactly a user fee. And yet according to the Met Council, if they increase transit fares by 25¢, ridership would decrease by 2.5%.
Another thread in the tangled web is that this legislation creates an additional level of government. The greedy county commissioners didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on this new tax revenue, so they lobbied to create the new “Counties Transit Improvement Board.” Did someone forget that we already have a seven-county governing board in charge of transit? It’s called the Metropolitan Council. The Met Council has been in existence for 30 years and is responsible for transit operations in the seven-county area.
There is now a new board made up of county commissioners who will decide how to divide up the estimated $100 million a year for “new transit projects,” while the Met Council has to figure out how to pay for the existing bus and light rail system, which is already $17 million in the red for this year.
What a concept – a small group of metro county commissioners gets to dream up new transit projects while the Met Council tries to figure out how to pay for the system we can’t afford now.
The last point in the tangled web to remember is that while most of us in the metro area will be paying more in sales taxes to fund “new transit projects,” we will also be paying higher gas taxes; with 55% of these “user fees” going to fund road and bridge projects in the other 80 counties – the result of our complicated transportation funding formula.
The tangled web of words and taxes in this legislation will build more roads in rural Minnesota and more trains in the metro area. So, if you thought higher taxes would result in more roads and less congestion in the metro area, you were deceived.
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