Ore. governor pushes job-creating road plan
Gas tax and vehicle fee increases could fund projects
By BRAD CAIN
Associated Press
Monday, November 10, 2008 10:43 AM PST
SALEM — From the race for president down to contests for legislative seats, Democrats were elected last week on promises they would patch up a broken economy.
Now, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski and legislative leaders say they are ready to deliver with a big job-creating transportation package as a first step.
Today, Kulongoski will appear at a legislative hearing to make his case for a plan that could raise the state gasoline tax and vehicle fees to pay for road and bridge improvement projects and create thousands of new construction-related jobs.
It’s what voters had in mind when they embraced Barack Obama and other Democrats in last Tuesday’s election, Kulongoski said in an interview.
‘‘We need to put people back to work,’’ the governor said. ‘‘And you can accomplish more good on that score by investing in public infrastructure than you can throwing public money at banks and financial institutions.’’
A new state jobless report due today likely will provide more grim news about Oregon’s unemployment rate — already above the national average — but it also could give added support for Kulongoski’s call for creating public works jobs.
Kulongoski isn’t giving details about the transportation package he will submit to lawmakers in January.
His package will draw from recommendations made by a committee that looked at short-term and long-term steps needed to address the state’s $1.3 billion transportation maintenance shortfall.
Among other things, the panel called for a gas tax increase of between 2 and 8 cents a gallon, doubling the vehicle titling fee to $110, raising the registration fee from $27 a year to $81 a year and creating a $100-a-year fee for titling cars new to the state.
Raising the gas tax, in particular, likely will spark considerable debate in the Legislature.
The state’s 24-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax is still the biggest single source of money for Oregon’s road and bridge program. Moves to increase it haven’t been popular. Oregonians trounced the most recent attempt — a nickel-a-gallon increase in 2000.
But the path to a possible gas tax hike became easier in last Tuesday’s election when Democrats won 36 seats in the Oregon House, thus the ability to raise taxes or fees without Republican help. Democratic state Rep. Dave Hunt, who will be the next speaker of the Oregon House, noted that the last time the issue was discussed in 2007, House Republicans were able to block a proposed $10 fee on new license plates to pay for transportation improvements.
‘‘It was that action, more than anything else, that convinced me that we needed a supermajority’’ of 36 Democrats, the Clackamas lawmaker said. ‘‘We’ve got one now, and I’m confident they will pass a transportation package.’’
Hunt also said he’s hoping Republicans ‘‘will engage with us and make it an even better package.’’
That could be the case, if recent comments by House Republican Leader Bruce Hanna are any indication.
While Republicans are leery of a big gas tax increase and tend to favor moves to create jobs through the private sector, they are open in the current economic crisis to discussions of public works projects, Hanna said.
‘‘If the Democrats come out with reasonable increases and say how they are going to prioritize that spending on transportation projects, then we will be willing to listen,’’ the Roseburg lawmaker said.
Michael Allen wrote on Nov 10, 2008 7:03 PM:
Because both parties are elected by people who have no idea of what they are doing. They both think that government is the solution when it is the problem and it is the problem because the voters don't know what they are doing. Our education system stinks when it comes to economic theory, why the Federal Reserve was created for the elite, how it damages our nation and how centralizing power also centralizes the mistakes and thus, destroys the nation even faster.
The two parties destroy the nation in different ways and sometimes at different speeds. But, for those who seek a 3rd party, the ones we have aren't really any better because they just want to destroy it in a new way. The people, from the lowest wage earner up have to want to live in an ethical, moral, hardworking, saving and mostly debt free society. They have to, from that person up, want to live within their means. They have to want fairness to come from how they treat their neighbor, not government. They have to want the freedom to live their culture in their neighborhood be granted to the "other culture" in the next state whether it be conservative, moderate or liberal.
One-size-fits-all central government doesn't allow those kinds of freedoms. It also means that a mistake affects all the members of the republic. Until the voters are educated in how a nation has to correct excesses, and live within budgets and allow each state to be different, we won't restore this nation to greatness. "