Governor, Legislature Stopped in Gas Tax Gridlock

Motorists no doubt logically assume that the taxes they pay at a gas pump will be spent to improve their driving conditions. Add lanes, widen interchanges, fill potholes.

Even make it easier to ride a bus or light rail.

Whether they all assume that or not, it’s the way this tax money should be spent--benefiting the stressed motorists who pay it. After all it is, in effect, a user fee.

At issue is not the 36-cent fuel tax on each gallon of gasoline--half state, half fed. That does get spent on transportation. We’re talking about the state sales tax on top of that--including a sales tax on the fuel tax. (Counties also collect a sales tax at the pump, some of it for transportation.)

Until last year, the bulk of the state sales tax motorists paid went into the general fund for such programs as parks, welfare and prisons. An argument simmered for years about the justification for this. Finally last July, it got resolved. Or so we thought.

Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature agreed to spend the pump portion of the state sales tax on transportation, at least for five years.

About $7 billion was committed, most of it for 141 specific projects around California. Also included was roughly $1.5 billion to be divided between state projects (40%), local roads (40%) and transit (20%).

Davis put on a big show signing the legislation in San Francisco, riding the muni train with Mayor Willie Brown and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown to the Giants’ new ballpark for the ceremony. “For too long, political gridlock has prevented us from doing something useful about highway gridlock,” the governor declared.

Whoops! Davis has now done a U-turn and the politicians are back in gridlock.

Davis saw a potential recession ahead. Tax revenues were slowing down from all sources. He needed to reverse direction and grab back that sales tax--$1.1 billion this budget year--to balance his proposed $101-billion state spending plan.

The governor’s idea: Delay for two years using the sales tax for transportation. But still make it a five-year program. There’ll be no delay in projects, he insisted, because these things take a long time to plan anyway. When the projects are ready to build, the money will be there.

Yeah, check’s in the mail, Republicans thought.

“Republicans are asking themselves, how do you deal with a governor who makes a deal one year and then turns around and breaks it the next,” says Senate GOP leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga. “There wasn’t even any discussion.”

That said, Brulte agrees “the changing nature of the economy merits some discussion and we’re prepared to compromise.”

The compromise is this: Delay the program as Davis wants, but place before voters next year a proposed constitutional amendment requiring that all state sales taxes paid by motorists be spent on transportation. The ballot measure would contain the 40-40-20 allocation formula (state-local-transit). There’d also be an escape clause for tough economic times that would allow the constitutional amendment to be suspended by a two-thirds legislative vote.

Polling indicates Californians would approve the measure overwhelmingly. A survey by pollster John Fairbank for a private group called Transportation Californian found that the proposal is supported by two-thirds of likely voters.

But first it must be supported by Davis and the Legislature. And right now it’s stuck in a budget jam-up.

There’s bipartisan support for the proposal, which would require a two-thirds legislative vote. But there’s not passionate support.

The Republicans’ passion and first priority is to stop Davis from ending a quarter-cent cut in the state sales tax. The governor wants the tax returned to 5 cents on Jan. 1 after a year at 4.75 cents. (Add in local taxes and the average would be 8 cents.) The GOP calls that a tax increase and a budget blocker.

Democrats and Davis will agree to the transportation compromise, but only if Republicans help pass the budget. Democrats are adamant about ending the sales tax cut.

“I would support [the ballot measure] if it was part of the budget deal,” says Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco). “Why would you do it for nothing?”

Says Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Kevin Murray (D-Culver City): “It makes sense that people who pay sales tax on gasoline should get the benefits of it. But it all comes down to how badly Republicans want it.”

Meanwhile, California’s traffic congestion keeps getting worse.

Fortunately--or unfortunately--state politicians don’t personally experience traffic gridlock commuting daily to the Capitol. If they did, there’d be less political gridlock over one of the state’s most destructive problems.