Opinion: The Right Way to Pay for Road Improvements

Dale Fegel Jr.

Freight Operations Supervisor

Con-way Freight Inc.

The Missouri Temporary Sales Tax Increase for Transportation, Amendment 7 — a referendum to fund transportation infrastructure improvements by raising the state’s sales tax — was struck down by the voters Aug. 5.

It should have been. It is the wrong solution.

Missouri is a very good example of the plight of politicians around the country who are trying to get their arms around a way to pay for needed infrastructure improvements. The governor and state Legislature made a very shrewd play by putting the question to the voters. They held the vote before the general election so that, in the collective mind of the electorate, neither party nor personalities would be tied to advocating for raising any kinds of taxes.

Incumbents are now off the hook and their re-elections probably secure — but Missouri still has an infrastructure problem, and so does just about every other state in the union.

The Missouri bipartisan wrangling took a familiar tone after the referendum. The Democratic governor’s office fired a salvo of re-election positioning, as illustrated in Transport Topics coverage of the vote in the Aug. 11 issue: “Missourians spoke clearly  . . . they are not willing to shoulder a $6 billion tax hike while special interests are being showered with special tax breaks, and the heaviest users of our roads are given a free pass.”

This Missouri governor’s office rhetoric was pretty vague — and without a solution. The classic cliché debate about Democrats working for the have-nots and Republicans working for the haves does not apply here. Our collective quality of life is dependent on safe and effective transportation infrastructure.

But let’s step back in time for a moment.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy wanted to continue the transportation legacy of President Dwight Eisenhower. Kennedy believed the national interstate highway system was vital to the economy, security and stability of the nation. The original plan for funding the highway system was “pay as you go.” This toll-funding strategy seemed logical on paper but proved to be a nightmare in its implementation.

Kennedy did not want the highway project to be scrapped. It needed to be funded. But how? The same question that Missouri and the rest of the country face today, the nation faced then.

Eisenhower in 1959 signed legislation to raise the gas tax to 4 cents per gallon, but only for a few months. The tax was then returned to 3 cents per gallon.

Two years later, Kennedy signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1961, which raised the gas tax to 4 cents per gallon from 3 cents.

The additional penny per gallon allowed for the construction of the interstate system to continue.

An interesting footnote: Kennedy appointed Rex Whitton as federal highway administrator in February 1961. The first priority for Whitton, who was from Missouri, was to fund the interstate highway project.

The fuel tax proved effective. It still is considered the most viable source of funding to those who lobby on behalf of the trucking industry.

American Trucking Associations supports a federal highway program that is paid for by the end-user. ATA believes the fuel tax should be the primary resource for collecting revenue for highway improvements.

And the Maine Motor Transport Association recently lobbied the state Legislature’s leadership, offering an outline designed to provide sustained infrastructure funding. The outline referred to fuel taxes as the most effective way to collect funding for highways.

MMTA also implied that trucking companies might be willing to support an increase in fuel taxes if the collected funds were specifically dedicated to enhancing the state’s highway system and did not interfere with interstate commerce.

The logic behind MMTA’s proposal is the kind that could win support from voters in Missouri and other states. For example, in 2004, Missouri voters approved the Missouri Fuel Tax Amendment, Amendment 3, which was designed to use the increase in pump prices for fixing the state’s roads and bridges.

In 2004, voters approved of raising the fuel tax. Ten years later, those same voters rejected raising the state’s sales tax for infrastructure improvements.

But this time around, Missouri politicians apparently could not bring themselves to propose fixing the states roads, bridges and other transportation concerns by raising the fuel tax. The voters made the right call when they chose to vote down the sales-tax hike.

However, all hope is not lost. Missouri politicians still have an opportunity to repair and improve their transportation infrastructure. They just have to make the right sales pitch to their constituents on how to pay for it.

The Missouri voters want increased fuel taxes to pay for the transportation infrastructure. They have made that clear at the ballot box. The politicians need to deviate from their recent course and ask for an increase in the fuel tax. The voters — in Missouri and elsewhere — probably will say, “Yes.”

Con-way Freight, a less-than-truckload carrier based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a subsidiary of Con-way Inc., which ranks No. 4 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.