Lawmakers suggest pot, fireworks to solve transportation funding woes

DES MOINES - Patch potholes with pot?

Build bridges with bottle rockets?

Those are among the ideas leaders of the effort to raise Iowa's fuel tax for the first time in more than a quarter of a century have heard from their colleagues.

Transportation Committee Chairmen Sen. Tod Bowman, D-Maquoketa, and Rep. Josh Byrnes, R-Osage, who plan to roll out a 10-cent-a-gallon increase, can't blame anyone but themselves.

'I've been asking for people to bring forward ideas, so they're doing what I asked,” Byrnes said.

Among the ideas he's received is to legalize marijuana, tax it and put the proceeds in the Road Use Tax Fund. Another takes the same approach with fireworks.

'I guess we're going to shoot off fireworks, smoke a lot of marijuana and have good roads,” Byrnes said.

Bowman appreciates that people are offering alternative approaches to raising about $215 million a year in additional revenue to meet a backlog of transportation maintenance and construction needs.

'But, at the end of the day, you have to ask whether they have any viability? Can they get the support all four caucuses and the governor?” Bowman said.

In most cases, he said, 'The answer is no.”

He and Byrnes - and, apparently, Gov. Terry Branstad - favor a flat 10-cent hike in the gas tax, to 32 cents per gallon, for its simplicity and the fact it will raise the $215 million a year the Iowa Department of Transportation estimates it needs to address critical needs in the transportation infrastructure.

That hasn't stopped other lawmakers from putting forth proposals.

Rep, Greg Heartsill, R-Chariton, introduced House File 145 to earmark 2 percent of the state general fund for transportation. That would be $140 million.

His approach would 'force lawmakers to prioritize,” Heartsill said.

Tapping the general fund for more transportation funding will be a tough sell when lawmakers are trying to find more funds in the $7 billion budget for K-12 schools, maintaining a tuition freeze at regents' universities, and to meet growing mental health and Medicaid costs, Byrnes and Bowman countered.

'How many times can you slice up that pie?” Byrnes asked.

The budget presents a challenge, Heartsill said, 'but if we say the only way to fund transportation is adding another 10 cents to the gas tax means we are saying there is no excess, there is no waste.”

'I'm only in my second term, but I'm not willing to buy that,” he said.

His approach is similar to one promoted by Americans for Prosperity, a free market advocacy group. It recommends tapping the general fund to pay for transportation, noting the general fund has grown 10 percent in recent years.

The general fund's biggest expenditures go to basic state aid to Iowa's schools, Medicaid, state salaries and benefits, and other operational costs.

Another bill introduced this week, House File 144 by Rep. Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City, takes a multipronged approach. It would raise the excise tax on fuel 6 cents over two years, add $50 million in gaming revenue, scoop half the revenue from cities' traffic enforcement devices and require the DOT to find $50 million in savings.

As much as he appreciates the suggestions, Byrnes believes that if alternatives to gas tax hike had support they would have been enacted by now.

He concedes the need for additional funding has been talked about for years without lawmakers raising the gas tax. He attributes that to legislators worrying about re-election - some have pledged not to raise taxes.

'Those are the two big things people worry about. Otherwise people would agree the gas tax is a good mechanism,” he said.

He sees little to gain from moving away from the fuel tax to a more complicated system of funding transportation.

'We've got a mechanism that is constitutionally protected, that collects money from out of out-of-state drivers and is truly a users' fee,” Byrnes said. 'Why are we trying to create new mechanism when we have a really good mechanism in place?”

Davis Scott of the Iowa Good Roads Association and Iowa Motor Truck Association called the plans 'non-starters.”

The biggest drawback is that the funds would not be constitutionally protected. Gas tax revenue is protected from being spent on things other than transportation. Amending the Iowa Constitution is a multiyear process.

'Bottom line, if it's not constitutionally protected, we don't want it,” he said about alternatives to the fuel tax.

Not everyone agrees. Iowans for Tax Relief, which supported the last fuel tax hike in 1989, refers to a poll that found 78 percent of Iowans oppose the tax. A more recent Loras College Poll found 53 percent favored the dime increase.

Byrnes, Bowman, and Iowans for Tax Relief President David Stanley will discuss transportation funding on Iowa Public Television's 'Iowa Press” this weekend. The show can be seen at 7:30 p.m. Friday and noon Sunday on IPTV, at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on IPTV World, and online at www.iptv.org beginning Friday evening.