Minnesota Opportunity

02/21/2007

Paul Munnis

Congressman Oberstar, Chairman of the US House Transportation Committee appeared yesterday in front of a joint session of our Minnesota Legislature to testify on Minnesota Transportation policy.

In a few deft sentences he made it clear that Minnesota is way behind the transportation curve, that we need a cash infusion to overcome our problem, that he is steering billions of Federal transportation money to Minnesota to help us solve our problem and that the ball is in the court of the Minnesota Legislature to raise matching funds through increased fees or taxes.

He advocated for a hike in the gas tax as a simple way to implement the needed funding. He guessed it to be about a nickel a gallon and defended it as a user fee increase that is less than the increased use of the state transportation infrastructure by motorists and that has been frozen for years at the same level even as usage increases.

So there it is in a nutshell. Take the money and use it for improved infrastructure development in Minnesota or else send it back to Congress for others to use.

We support Minnesota raising taxes on a use basis to garner needed matching funds and then getting the transportation overhaul and modernization needed for our State.

There are several ways to raise the money: an increase on gas taxes is one, others include the use of tolls, an increase in license tab fees, or increased sales taxes on vehicles. These are not property tax increases they are user fees and Pawlenty needs to pick one and support it. Failing that then the Legislature must choose a solution.

The Congressman spoke of other improvements in transportation including commuter rail, a mid-west transportation rail corridor, improvements in canal locks on water routes, and the ways in which these tie-in to energy and agriculture policy and how that impacts Minnesotans.

After listening to him I came away with several thoughts. The first was how lucky we are to have a person so well positioned to help Minnesota through a difficult time in State growth of transportation; the second was the good command he has of the facts and how well he has the pulse of Minnesota, our region, and our nation; the third was the quality job that he is doing integrating known facts for the benefit of all Americans; and the last was of the enormous benefit we can achieve when we seize the moment.

Please encourage our Legislature to make the right choices.