Russell Long immortalized the response of special interests to public finance needs with his ditty:
Don’t tax you and don’t tax me.
Tax that fellow behind the tree.
The only problem is that the fellow behind the tree is an elusive rascal. The rest of us all agree he should pay for what we want. But he just never steps up with checkbook in hand to keep his part of the unequal bargain the rest of us want to foist upon him.
The continuing saga of Colorado’s crumbling bridges and highways is a case in point. Last year, Gov. Bill Ritter named a study group to start building the balanced “21st century” transportation system we all agree we need.
The committee labored long and suggested four plans varying in cost from $500 million a year to $2 billion. The various stakeholders — the word now in vogue as a euphemism for the politically incorrect “special interests” I used in the introduction to this essay — said, “Great. Fund them all. As long we don’t have to pay for them. Just tax that fellow behind the tree.”
And so it goes.
For the most part, legislators ignored the pricier options. But some, led by dauntless Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo, chair of the transportation committee, were interested in raising at least the $500 million a year the special panel had concluded was needed just to keep up with basic maintenance and repair of our existing road and bridge network.
The problem then became just how to raise the $500 million advocated by the doughty legislator we hereby christen “Buffie the Pothole Slayer.”
One way suggested by Ritter’s panel was to raise vehicle registration fees an average of $100 each.
Technically, such fee increases don’t require a vote of the people under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. But it would be a foolish legislator who voted to up the annual burden on a two-car family by $200 without first asking, “Mother may I?”
Lawmakers quickly filed that idea under PS, for “political suicide.”
And so it goes.
The Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce tried to break the deadlock by suggesting that such a fee increase be scaled according to weight. That would mean heavy commercial vehicles would pay more and your family sedan considerably less.
Truckers replied by telling the chamber’s problem-solvers to tax that fellow behind the tree. Reportedly, there were also suggestions of a considerably more colorful nature.
And so it goes.
Last Sunday, The Denver Post weighed in editorially, suggesting raising about half the $500 million by a reduced registration fee, scaled by weight, that might tally $25 on the family car. For the remaining $240 million, The Post pointed to a “visitors fee” suggested by the transportation panel of $6 a day per motel/hotel room and $6 a day for rental cars.
Letters. We got letters. Let us just say that the stakeholders/special interests in the tourist industry — who depend for their very existence on a good state highway system — were not amused at the suggestion that they help pay to maintain that network. They’d rather have you subsidize their businesses. Or else tax that fellow behind the tree.
And so it goes.
Did I mention the transportation panel suggested we could raise $95 million a year by increasing the state severance tax on oil and natural gas?
Several of the transportation advocates met with energy industry leaders to discuss that plan. As they were dangling by their heels from an oil derrick, one of them was heard to say: “That went well.”
And so it goes.
So where are we now?
Well, my spies report that the never-say-die folks at the chamber are now floating the idea of a bare-bones $20 increase in registration fees to raise $100 million. That would be enough to offset transportation-related expenses like paying for the highway patrol that now drain $100 million a year “off the top” of the Highway Users Tax Fund.
No doubt that baby step would be better than doing nothing at all about our crumbling roads and bridges.
But not much better.
And so it goes.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost.com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.
