More on the Gas Tax

In 1986, I first ran for state representative and one of the things I talked about was our need to repair or replace the Hadley Overpass in North Adams. This is the longest span in Berkshire County and was in bad shape. Here we are in 2009 and the Overpass is finally being rebuilt twenty-three years later. We are not replacing it, but rebuilding the existing structure after years of being told we have to replace it and much dithering back and forth on replace/repair.

The machinations over this bridge are, in a nutshell, why it is difficult for me to vote for a proposed 19 cent gas tax in Massachusetts. We have poured money into the greater Boston area and have neglected the rest of the state as we did so. Now, my constituents are asked once again to send money to Boston for its road and mass transit systems.

This is unfair. When I entered office, over 80% of the bridges in Berkshire County were substandard. These were not unsafe, but needed work. Today the number is still around the same. For years the western part of the state has seen money diminish for roads and bridges. We have witnessed time and again the postponement of bids for work, and we have lived with lousy roads in an area that doesn’t have the luxury of a sprawling mass transit system. In all that time, I have never complained because Boston and the surrounding areas have been a powerful economic engine for the state. However, enough is enough and I am very reluctant to vote for more money to once again bail out bad projects, decisions, or management. If we had had the same percentage spent here as in the eastern part of the state, we could have been part of the economic engine for the state.

Today, the people of my district subsidize the MBTA with one penny on the sales tax even though they are not within scores of miles of that system. We passed this as we were told that a penny from the sales tax and forward funding for the “t” would take care of them and we wouldn’t have to spend any more money on this system. Live and learn. Hiring practices, inefficiencies in new construction and ridiculous pension benefits are piling up new costs on this system.
For years we have waited for the “Big Dig” project to be done so that we could expand road construction in other parts of the state. The cost overruns on this project were legion and here we are after the system is in place and we are being asked to pay once again.

While I know that we need to come up with a plan to fund our transportation needs, I am unclear as to why people actually using the roadways that need to be paid for can’t pay a greater share for that benefit. The people going north/south on the Big Dig should pay for this. Many of the people in my district live in rural towns where a car is a necessity. They should pay a modest increase in the gas tax in order to repair their roads and bridges. And they shouldn’t be penalized for having SUV’s in the more hilly and snowy terrain of the Berkshires. In some areas, these are necessities.

Finally, I can’t fathom the Governor’s desire to eliminate any tolls when the entire system in fiscally insolvent. People of the Metro West area should not be asked to shoulder the burden of paying a disproportionate share of the Big Dig debt obligations. However, the solution seems to be to shift that disproportionate share to others rather than those who actually use the roads. Keep the tolls as they are and supplement these with a gas tax increase that is an acceptable size. And put the tolls back on exits one through four. I have been saying this since Gov. Weld eliminated these tolls and no one on Berkshire County has ever complained that I want to tax them more. Most of the travelers through these exits are not from Massachusetts!

Fixing our transportation system is a difficult problem and I know that it will cost us more money in order to right our system. However, the Governor’s statement that this will cost about as much per week as a large cup of coffee is wrong on two counts. First, in the Berkshires we tend to drive more because of the lack of mass transit and the rural nature of our population. It would not be unreasonable to put 20,000 miles on our vehicles per year. That would work out to a cost of $16.00/mo. That’s a lot of coffee. And new more energy efficient vehicles are nice, but unaffordable to people in lower income levels that have a hard time keeping the old car going on their income. A new car doesn't just mean more car payments, but higher insurance costs, excise tax, etc.

Second, this is on top of other tax and fee proposals. I drove approximately 29,000 miles back and forth to Boston last year. Some of that is paid for by per diems, but much is not. For me, in my income bracket, this proposed tax would be an inconvenience. However, we have many people living from paycheck to paycheck in the Berkshires and throughout the state. We had an increase in our unemployment rolls of 16,800 last month. Those people are living on an unemployment check. If all of the plans being floated around were to occur, the average family may be paying more for their alcohol, candy, meals, hotel stays (yes, people from the Berkshires pay this on the Cape or elsewhere in the state. It is not just a tax on out of state visitors.), telephone service, broadband, as well as the recently raised tax on cigarettes. Add to this higher local fees to make up for lost state revenues and that family living week to week could experience a $30-40 increase in their monthly bills or more. Where does this money come from?

Again, I know we have to pay for our transportation system. But we must keep in mind that we are in the worst fiscal climate in 70+ years. People can’t rely on state services given the constraints of our budgets. Every dollar is precious. We need to be intelligent and innovative in our thinking. And we need to be fair to all of the citizens in the Commonwealth, regardless of where they live.