KCRag Forum

I lean towards voting for Proposition D and raising the gas tax.

The Kansas City Star supports voting yes.

https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/edit ... 48390.html

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch supports voting yes.

This article on the NextStL website makes a good argument to vote NO. It's not the traditional anti-tax argument.

https://nextstl.com/2018/10/vote-no-on- ... -increase/

The part that convinces me is the part about reforming how money is spent, or lack of reform. The way the money is allocated means that a large percentage of the new money may not necessarily go to maintaining the roads and bridges we already have. There is no limit to prevent the money being spent to construct new, or expand old, roads on rural land in the suburbs.

What I worry about is the construction and real estate lobbies getting money allocated for these new roads so they can build more subdivisions on farm land at the expense of already-built areas.

In this debate, Gwen Moore makes some good arguments for voting no.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/pro ... v-6-ballot

The proposition:

https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/Electi ... edCopy.pdf

Is this enough reason to vote no? Or is this an argument for another day?

MO gas tax is one of lowest in country and has among crappiest roads/bridges because of it. There are some good points against but for the most part the road standards are too low in MO and we need to take care of the bridges. Given most of MO is still an anti-tax Tea Party state, have a hard time seeing it pass when you also have urbanites opposing it. But we need it and a specific use tax like this has a better shot.

It's funny we're an anti-tax state with how many miles of road the state maintains.

If this doesn't pass a gas tax vote that also removes the bottom 20% miles of roads (by use) from the state system could be a good next try.

The state maintains a lot of roads that probably should be county roads.

The state maintains too many roads and will certainly spend a lot of this on new and unnecessary stuff, but we do need to repair roads and bridges. Have we forgotten broadway bridge fiasco already?

It's certainly not perfect, but it can't be better and still pass. It is unpopular (and illegal) to toll already built interstates like I-70, and we won't get rural Missouri to fund transit with a gas tax or anything like that.

Compromise is part of governing, we can't hold out for a fantasy bill or a different electorate.

Missourians vote down gas tax raise.

https://www.kctv5.com/news/missouri-vot ... 33528.html

10 cent gas tax vote is working its way through MO Legislature. This increase would put us closer to, but still below, average. Missouri maintains the silly idea that gas and diesel should be taxed the same. Diesel users do far more wear and tear per gallon so most states tax them more.

Is that under the threshold that requires a public vote? That's the only way to get it done right now, but it seems that in the past the legislature has been too afraid of being primaried over this meager increase.

Eon Blue wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 5:25 pm Is that under the threshold that requires a public vote? That's the only way to get it done right now, but it seems that in the past the legislature has been too afraid of being primaried over this meager increase.

Our paper down here had a piece about it today.

When Missouri lawmakers go into session next month, they may decide to send voters a gas tax proposal in the near future. The hike would help pay for highways, roads and bridges — whether taxpayers go along with it could have long-lasting consequences

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/ ... 466363002/

normalthings wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 1:21 pm 10 cent gas tax vote is working its way through MO Legislature. This increase would put us closer to, but still below, average. Missouri maintains the silly idea that gas and diesel should be taxed the same. Diesel users do far more wear and tear per gallon so most states tax them more.

The state does need to raise the diesel tax higher than regular gasoline.

How Same-Day Shipping Is Clogging U.S. Roads

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/12/07/ ... u-s-roads/