Sometimes We Are Paid To Think

With only a handful of hours left until the June 30 deadline, the buzz in the State Capitol had very little to do with the budget itself, which had already been basically finished. Instead, all anyone could talk about were two seemingly separate but politically linked bills with major implications for Pennsylvania- transportation funding and liquor privatization.

Back in May the State Senate passed a bill (Senate Bill 1) to provide $2.5 billion per year to fix roads and bridges and fund mass transit; the main funding source was uncapping the Oil Company Franchise Tax, which is paid by oil companies but passed on to consumers. Uncapping the tax would have pretty much guaranteed a whopping tax increase of nearly thirty cents per gallon at the pump for drivers. There were also increases in drivers’ license and registration fees and a substantial surcharge on all moving violations like speeding tickets.

Senate Bill 1 stalled in the House of Representatives, and the Senate made it very clear that they would only pass a liquor privatization bill if the House passed a transportation funding bill. The two issues became politically linked as the clock ticked towards June 30, and it became very clear the House Republicans lacked the votes to get the bill over the finish line.

The Republicans hold a 111-92 majority in the State House. It only takes 102 votes to pass a bill, so the Republicans can do pretty much whatever they want. I’m not being partisan here; just stating facts. Very few of the House Republicans wanted to vote for transportation funding, and their leaders went as far as to hire FOX News talking head Dick Morris to come in and advise them against it.

Instead of reaching across the aisle to get votes from Democrats who want to fund transportation (especially in urban areas where mass transit is critical), the House Republicans amended the bill to lower mass transit funding. They were totally unwilling to work towards a compromise bill that could have passed into law.

When asked about the lack of bipartisan support for the bill, one of the Republican House leaders told reporters about Democrats (including me), “They’re not paid to think.” How crazy is that? The Republicans have more than enough votes to pass anything they want, and when they need bipartisan support for something, their solution is to refuse to accept any ideas but their own and then blindly demand I vote for something they won’t vote for themselves?

I actually think I am paid to think, for myself and in the best interests of the people I represent. And after doing some thinking, here’s what I have to say on the transportation funding issue.

We do need to fix our crumbling infrastructure- there’s no denying it. But I believe it is fundamentally unfair to put the financial burden solely on people at the pump through tax increases, especially since most of us aren’t the ones causing the damage to the roads.

A couple of years ago, I met with Penndot about many of our state roads, and they confirmed that the damage was much worse due to the heavy truck traffic from the natural gas industry. State routes like Routes 50, 18, 980, 19, 519 and 844 are deteriorating years ahead of schedule because no one ever anticipated the high volume of industrial traffic that the gas industry brought to the area.

To be clear- my point is not to attack the gas industry on this issue. I realize that increased traffic is a necessary byproduct of job creation and economic development. But I don’t know how I can justify asking my constituents to pay another thirty cents per gallon at the pump when the people doing the real damage to the roads aren’t paying anything to fix them. It just seems fundamentally unfair.

Not one penny of the Impact Fee paid by drillers goes to state roads like the ones previously mentioned. All of the money goes to local and county governments, but they aren’t legally allowed to fix state roads. With so much of the traffic directly impacting these state roads we all use every day, I believe those who are a large part of the problem should be at least a small part of the solution.

So with the transportation funding proposal dead for the foreseeable future, it’s time for more creative solutions. In the coming weeks, I will be formally asking Penndot to conduct traffic and engineering studies on the state routes in my legislative district for the purpose of determining whether they should be posted for heavy industrial traffic. This means companies from all over who regularly use our state roads would finally have to contribute financially to their repair and maintenance.

As we’ve seen over the last three years, compromising in order to reach meaningful and common sense solutions is not a hallmark of the Corbett administration. If the powers that be are unwilling to take a truly unbiased look at everything causing our increasing transportation funding needs, they had better not come knocking on my door when it’s time to vote on a tax increase on individuals rather than an industry that has received more tax breaks than you or I could ever hope for.

Whether they like it or not in Harrisburg, I am paid to think. And in this case, I think making you bear the financial burden for transportation upgrades while others get the benefits without paying is a raw deal for the people of the 46th Legislative District.