The gas tax plan unveiled this week by Gov.
Better than expected because efforts to increase the gas tax have been practically dead on arrival in
What the governor, Senate President
The bottom line? It nets out to a 2-cent-per-gallon increase on July 1 (as a 2 percent wholesale tax is applied but the gas tax is lowered by that nickel), followed by another 2 percent increase, resulting in a net 7-cent increase one year later, and potentially another 7-cent raise if
Confused yet? It also raises
Those compromises may help the presiding officers round up votes, but it was also clearly helpful that Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell last month persuaded his legislature to approve a sweeping transportation financing package as well. While his approach was quite different — relying more on a sales tax increase and robbing from other state priorities, like education — the proposal produces a similar amount of new revenue for roads, bridges and transit projects.
Nevertheless, it's going to require a major lobbying effort for Mr. O'Malley's tax increase proposal to win a majority in Maryland's House and Senate.
Yet the GOP leadership is also pleased to see the MTA fare increase. Whether or not that represents the equivalent of a "War on Urban Maryland" (to rework the mantra of rural lawmakers), transit-bashing Republican lawmakers who claim to be sympathetic toward working people are clearly not at all interested in those who ride the bus.
To win a sufficient number of Democratic votes, the gas tax bill is likely to be tied to other big-ticket proposals from two of the state's most politically influential subdivisions: Baltimore's ambitious school construction plan and
But here's the rub. While ambitious, the compromise falls short of what is needed to build the Red and Purple lines simultaneously. Essentially, that's the price of dropping the gas tax by a nickel. Instead of $3.4 billion in new transportation spending over the next five years, the state could afford more than $4 billion if the gas tax remained at 23.5 cents per gallon.
Maryland will be able to design, plan and even acquire rights-of-way for both rail lines — but when it's time to build? Then, the state will either have to delay, phase the projects in or find some other creative solution. That strikes us as politically foolish, as it simply increases the chance that the legislature will have to revisit transportation finances in five years.
Still, that might be quibbling considering that prospects for raising the gas tax looked dismal just weeks ago, and particularly so since it would not even be considered in 2014, an election year. That the gas tax would forever be tied to the Consumer Price Index is a critical improvement, given how contentious tax increases have become.
Will consumers feel the tax increase? Perhaps, although gas prices are so volatile that a 20-cent adjustment, let alone a 7-cent one, might go unnoticed. But in return for these additional pennies on the gallon, Marylanders will see billions of dollars spent on roads and transit, upgrades that should relieve congestion, promote economic development and keep this state competitive with its neighbors. That makes the unfairly maligned gas tax a good investment for Maryland.