GOP REJECTS JERRY BROWN’S NEW CAR FEE, GAS TAX

California Gov. Jerry Brown wants over three billion dollars in new taxes, including a $65 tax on every vehicle, plus increases in gasoline and diesel excise taxes. The money will go to paying for transportation needs that he ignored in his recent budget.

Once again, Brown has decided that the 42 Republican legislators in the State Capitol are chumps.

This week, Brown’s office circulated his latest proposal to fund transportation infrastructure–after both the State Senate and State Assembly Republican Caucuses have been unequivocal that raising taxes on Californians is off of the table.

Gov. Brown Proposes $65 Fee On Drivers As Part Of $3.6 Billion Plan To Fix Highways

CBS San Francisco

Within hours of the release of the Governor’s wish-list for legal plunder, Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen (R-Modesto) released a statement saying that “the Administration’s ideas call for more than doubling the vehicle registration fees and raising the price of fuel on all Californians–we disagree and think Californians have paid enough.”

State Senate Republican Leader Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield) issued a joint release with Senator Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), Vice Chairman of the Budget Committee, in which Nielsen spoke to the proposed taxes:

The Governor’s solution to fixing our roads and highways cannot be to raise taxes. We are already paying enough. What are they doing with the taxes Californians have been paying at the pumps? Most Californians drive over 10,000 miles each year; an increase of six cents per gallon for gas, eleven cents per gallon for diesel and paying an additional $65 in car taxes per vehicle is an enormous burden on California’s working families least able to pay them.

Apparently Governor Brown thinks that Republicans are “posturing,” and not serious about drawing a line in the sand against higher taxes.

The Governor wants Republican legislators to forget that it was just two-and-a-half months ago that he signed the largest budget in state history, coming in at nearly $160 billion dollars. This partisan budget was negotiated between Brown and Democrat leaders, without any meaningful input taken from Republicans. Since a budget requires only a simple majority vote, no Republican votes were needed.

Despite billions of dollars in unanticipated tax revenues, and rosy forecasts for the year, the new budget “shorted” needed transportation funding. This was done with premeditation on the Governor’s part, given that as soon as he signed the budget, he then called for a special session of the legislature to raise taxes to fill the politically manufactured transportation funding deficit.

Clearly, again, Brown’s thinking is that Republican legislators are just lacking in intelligence, at even a basic level.

Republicans spent the 2013-2014 legislative term in the super-minority in the Capitol. They had very, very little power. What little leverage they did have was only due to serial corruption by Democrats in the State Senate, with three of them not voting for much of the term (one of the three was convicted on multiple felonies, the other two await trial, but have since termed out).

The 2014 campaign by Republicans to climb out of the super-minority, and regain relevance in the State Capitol, was largely centered around an explicit theme that if the GOP could pick up seats, they could stop tax increases from being passed in the legislature. Perhaps if they were taking a shot at being the majority party in the Capitol, there would have been a more robust and broad campaign theme. But climbing back to over a third in each caucus was about being able to mount an effective defense: no new taxes.

Right now is when Republican legislators are showing their worth, and demonstrating their resolve. This is the moment when they are showing countless volunteers, donors and supporters that elections do matter, and that united together Republicans can protect California taxpayers.

Ironically, the Governor’s ongoing insistence that taxes be hiked by billions of dollars gives Republican legislators a chance to demonstrate that they have the courage of their convictions.

The sad reality is that this kind of high-stakes kabuki with Republicans has a tremendous downside for the State of California, which is that despite the fact that taxpayers are sending record funds to state government, Democrats simply won’t spend any of that money on the basic brick-and-mortar building of roads.

If the Governor was truly interested in making California a better place, instead of abusing Republicans, he should actually listen to them. While some solid Republican ideas were incorporated into the Governor’s latest proposals, largely rejected were a lot of great and creative proposals put forward by the GOP caucuses to fund transportation infrastructure using existing tax revenues.

Maybe, just maybe, if Capitol Democrats will absorb the fact that car taxes, gas taxes, income taxes, property taxes, tobacco taxes, and oil severance taxes (to name a few of those proposed) are not going to happen, the last week of the legislative session could be used productively to prioritize some existing revenue for roads, highways and bridges.

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Jon Fleischman is the Politics Editor of Breitbart California. A longtime participant, observer and chronicler of California politics, Jon is also the publisher atwww.flashreport.org. His column appears weekly on this page. You can reach Jon at jon@flashreport.org.

Via: Breitbart

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[Commentary] [VIDEO] A Sensible Long-Term Fix for the Highway Trust Fund

Every day, American families get in their vehicles and drive. Whether it’s dropping the kids off at school, commuting to work or going to the supermarket, we rely on our highways, bridges and roads to get us where we need to go.

But can our transportation infrastructure rely on Washington?

A substantial percentage of each state’s transportation budget relies on money from the federal Highway Trust Fund. This fund is financed from gas taxes and provides money for projects such as fixing crumbling highways and bridges.

But the future of the Highway Trust Fund is in doubt. As Americans increasingly drive more fuel-efficient vehicles, money flowing into the fund is dropping. Congress is having a hard time figuring out how to address the resulting gap between the fund’s revenues and expenditures. Moreover, the Highway Trust Fund’s authorization is expiring at the end of the month.

So what should Congress do?

Some lawmakers — including us — want to reform how Washington spends highway money and find savings to close this funding gap. Others take the opposite approach and want to raise taxes.

In recent years, Congress hasn’t been able to solve this impasse. Short-term “patches” that transfer taxpayer dollars into the highway fund have been passed, but this solution is nothing more than a gimmicky Band-Aid.

And it looks like Congress is about to do the same thing at the end of July.

It does not have to be this way.

Instead of more short-term fixes, we believe there’s a sensible way to pass a long-term highway bill that fully funds our highways, roads and bridges, does not increase taxes, grows our economy, creates jobs and reduces the deficit.

Sounds too good to be true?

It’s not. Let’s pair highway funding with modernizing our immigration system for highly skilled workers.

As we saw last Congress, there are forward-thinking bills that would expand opportunities for highly skilled immigrants to come here, grow the economy, create jobs and pay taxes. They are not only good policy, but also a revenue windfall for Washington.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has determined several of these bipartisan proposals would generate more than $100 billion in tax revenues. These revenues are more than enough to pay for a long-term highway bill and reduce the deficit at the same time.

Under this approach, there would be no need for higher gas taxes or a new mileage tax, which Pennsylvanians and Hoosiers do not want — and should not have — to pay. More taxes not only mean less economic growth and fewer jobs in our states, but it also means less money for families to spend on groceries or rent, or to save for their children’s education.

This approach also would grow our economy and create jobs for American workers.

For example, each year, our universities churn out tens of thousands of foreign graduates with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our immigration policy currently forces these graduates to leave and help companies overseas that compete with U.S. firms. Instead, we should be encouraging such graduates to work here, contribute to our economy, pay taxes and help drive innovation, job creation and economic growth.

Via: Roll Call

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Congress tries to figure out how to pay for highways

PUT ALL THE LAZY "POS" THAT DON'T WANT TO WORK EARN THEIR FREE THINGS AND MAKE THEM BUILD THE HIGHWAYS OR THEY GET NOTHING!!!!! (OH WAIT, THE UNIONS WILL GET PISSED OFF)

Congress will try next week to stave off the exhaustion of the national fund that pays for roads and bridges.

Both chambers are set to hold hearings on the highway trust fund, which would run out of money by the end of July if Congress doesn't find more funding for it.

The hearings called by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees likely will focus on examining long-term solutions to the problem of funding highway infrastructure.

The trust fund, financed by the gasoline tax, has required numerous bailouts from general revenues in recent years, as inflation has chipped into the value of the 18.4-cents-a-gallon tax and Americans have turned to more fuel-efficient cars.

Top lawmakers have said that closing the long-term funding mismatch is a priority. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hinted on Friday, after scuttling a trade bill sought by President Obama, that a "robust highway bill" would be the price of her support.

A short-term patch, intended to buy a few more months for the trust fund, is the more likely outcome.

"I think we'll probably kick the can down the road again," Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said Wednesday.

At this point, a short-term reauthorization, possibly funded through some form of budget gimmickry, is most likely because there is little time left for a broader measure before the end of July.

But there is hope among lawmakers that later in the year there could be an agreement on a longer-term patch, if not an outright solution.

Some lawmakers have suggested plans that would eliminate recurring shortfalls.

VIA: Washington Examiner

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Let America Fix the Highways Washington Broke

Congress has a particularly bad habit of bailing out federal programs without addressing the underlying problems that caused failure in the first place. This round, we’re punting the ball on the Highway Trust Fund.

However, this time is different. We have a common-sense solution to reform our nation’s transportation policy, modernize America’s outdated transportation infrastructure system, and return decision making power to the states.

The Transportation Empowerment Act will update federal transportation policy with the same proven principles—diversity, customization and open-sourcing—that are driving innovation across our economy today.

Today, when we think of federal transportation policy, we think of the triumph of the Interstate Highway System. It was an enormous national project that began in the 1950s under President Eisenhower and reflected post-war America’s confident optimism. We had become a combustion-engine economy and needed a transportation network to connect our nation. So we built one.

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, you can drive from Miami to Salt Lake, and from San Diego to Boston, only having to stop for gas. And a job well done is still a job, well, done.

In recent decades, America’s transportation needs have changed, but—as is too common in Washington today—our transportation policies have not kept pace. The highway program, and those who used it, built highways, via a per-gallon gasoline tax paid at the pump.

Today, drivers still pay the tax, but politicians redirect portions of the highway fund for bike lanes and walking paths and public transit systems in certain cities. Meanwhile, partisan giveaways to special interests and bureaucratic skimming artificially inflate the cost of new infrastructure projects by as much as 20 percent.

The Transportation Empowerment Act will reduce the federal gas tax from 18.3 cents a gallon to 3.7 cents a gallon.

The status quo isn’t working; that’s why Congress hasn’t truly reauthorized the highway program in years. We just keep coming up with patches and bailouts.

Today, our most pressing transportation needs are local, not national. States and local governments are not only up to the job of maintaining existing highways—they’re already responsible for 75 percent of it. They are, in fact, far better positioned to lead in the next phase of infrastructure innovation. That is what our bill will finally allow them to do.

The Transportation Empowerment Act will transfer much of the responsibility for transportation projects to the individual states, allowing them to decide how to best spend their transportation dollars, and ultimately cutting out the Washington middle-man.

Via: Daily Signal

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