GOP Senator supports gas-tax increase

Texas Legislature

Vilas Bhuchar, Feb 08, 10.

Greenville’s Bob Deuell, a Republican Texas Senator, has indicated that he would support a one-time increase of 10 cents a gallon in the motor fuels tax, according to the Dallas Morning News.

According to the story, Deuell expressed support for the increase, which Republican John Carona of Dallas called for, to members of the newspaper’s editorial board while they were going over his answers to the paper’s online voter’s guide:

I asked why his support for indexing wasn’t in his written transportation answers, and Deuell emphasized that was his position. And he volunteered, “I would support a one-time increase, too. Ten cents.”

The two-term Republican said traffic congestion causes bad air and hurts the bottom line of businesses.

“I sell time, as a physician,” same as many businesses, he said. A plumbing service would make less money, he said, if traffic congestion limited the workday to six house calls instead of eight.

Overall, citing transportation and water supplies, Deuell said the state has a responsibility to keep up infrastructure and to find fair ways of paying for it.

The story also includes his answers to key questions surrounding transportation funding:

Q. How would you characterize the financial needs and condition of Texas’ roadway system?

Deuell: Our road system has been underfunded for years and many needed projects are years behind schedule. Traffic congestion problems and related pollution problems are only going to get worse as our area and Texas continue to grow in the coming decades. And while we have increased funding, maintenance costs increase with each mile we build and that is taking a higher percentage of the TxDOT budget each year.

Q. What ways of generating new transportation revenue would you support - taxes, tolls, borrowing, fees, other? Please be specific.

Deuell: We must stop diversions from gas tax dollars and ensure they are used for their stated purpose: to build infrastructure projects in Texas. Of course, we will have to fund most of those items with general revenue. I support the limited use of toll roads as an option for new highway construction, but do not support requiring tolls on existing roadways. I also support the use of local option transportation funding projects as long as they are required to be approved by voters.

Finally, the story notes that “legislative calls for a gas-tax hike continued this week in Austin, at a joint Senate-House meeting of transportation committees,” and indicates that Deuell’s stance may have political implications:

Carona has been in the crosshairs of groups like the anti-tax stopthehike people who have cropped up online, and the dedicated anti-toll activist Terri Hall of San Antonio.

If the anonymous stopthehikers and others jump on Deuell for his comments, expect bouquets for his opponent, Sharon Russell of Rowlett, who wants to abolish the property tax and the franchise tax. She has been active in party politics and more recently seems to be active in Tea Party circles. I talked to her, and she seemed like a real nice—and very convicted—lady.

Full story

(Photo credit: hectore)