- Our next guest says borrowing is no longer an option for
transportation funding in Wisconsin.
Well, the proposed budget calls for half a billion dollars of
it.
President of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, Todd Berry
is here with his take and thanks for being here.
- Good to be back.
- Why isn't borrowing an option?
- Well, you know, transportation is one of those
things that it might be logical to borrow for it.
It's a long-term capital expenditure.
The problem is we had Governor Doyle do a lot of borrowing.
Then we had Governor Walker do a lot of borrowing.
And as a result, the amount of debt service that we're paying
per year is pushing a half billion dollars.
Not a cent of that is going to roads or transit.
It's going to pay off debt service.
And just to give people some sense of the magnitude of this,
in terms of debt service relative to budgets, we are
already where the federal government is going to be in
2040.
And everybody is saying, oh, there's a federal debt crisis.
Well, Wisconsin's transportation system is in worse shape
financially.
- But if not borrowing, then taxing?
- Well, you have two choices then.
You either decide that you're going to have a source of
revenue to pay for it and it's better to pay for it that way
than pay for it indirectly through layoffs from employers
that can't get goods to market or back, or better than paying
$500, $600, $700 a year to repair your tires, replace them,
shock absorbers.
I means it's just a question of how you want to pay.
Never mind that the gas tax and vehicle registration fee have
actually been heading down.
- Well, so how long have people been sounding the alarm on this?
And why no answers?
- We're about to celebrate at least the 20th anniversary.
We've had so many task forces and legislative study
commissions and the governor asked his new transportation
secretary to study the matter.
We have had-- everybody says there's a problem.
There should be.
People are driving less and they're driving more efficient
vehicles.
The gas tax doesn't do the job anymore.
But this isn't about reality.
This is about, you know, symbolism.
- Well, other states obviously have these same kinds of
problems.
Do other states do it better than we do?
- Other states have broader means of financing.
It could be tolls.
Some of them have general fund monies, their sales taxes or
their sales tax goes on the gas tax.
We don't have that.
We have a very narrow funding system.
It doesn't rise with inflation.
The thing that I find is so interesting is the same people
that don't want the gas tax and the vehicle registration fees to
grow as the economy grows are the same ones that are more than
happy to see the income tax go up 4%, 5%, 6% a year just
because the economy is growing and happy to spend the money.
- Well, what about that?
I think this fits.
What about the governor saying about, well, if we raise the gas
tax and the reg fees, then we got to cut income taxes or
property taxes?
- Well, we have been cutting gas taxes and registration fees
first of all.
Not only in nominal terms but in real terms we definitely have.
They're losing revenue.
They're losing value.
But, you know, if you want to balance tax increases and tax
cuts, in the -- in 2014 we spent $400 million to cut technical
college property taxes.
In '13-'15 budget we spent $600 million to cut income taxes.
The governor, to his credit, has had some significant tax cuts.
We're still in the throes of phasing in a $300 plus million
dollar corporate income tax cut.
We've had over a billion dollars of tax cuts.
I think you could change the way the tax gas and registration
fees were designed and not necessarily have a tax increase
at all.
It's just we need a system that works.
- We need to leave it there.
Obviously, we'll be covering this for months to come,
years to come.
Todd Berry, thanks very much.