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Wisconsin Republicans Consider Income And Sales Taxes For Roads

Move Would Use Money Normally Set Aside For Schools, Prisons, Health Care

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People working on repairing a road
Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

The state Legislature’s top Republicans have suggested they’re open to funding Wisconsin’s roads with money that would normally pay for expenses such as schools, prisons and health care.

While it’s still early in budget negotiations, such a move would continue a trend during Gov. Scott Walker’s administration where the state has used more and more general fund dollars to pay for transportation.

State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said last week he’d support paying for roads by using income and sales tax money to pay for transportation. Asked Tuesday about that prospect, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he’s considering all options and Fitzgerald’s idea could be one of them.

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“If we did it where it was a percentage of the sales tax or a percentage of the income tax or something, that would be a long-term revenue source,” Vos said.

Before Republicans took control of state government in 2011, they regularly attacked former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle for “raiding” the transportation fund to pay for general fund expenses. But a memo from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau shows over the past 14 years, far more money has swung the other way, with a net $560.9 million in general fund dollars being used to pay for roads.

Jon Peacock, the director of the Wisconsin Budget Project at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said that’s meant less money for schools and other services.

“We can’t afford to keep siphoning off so much money from the general fund, because it means we don’t have the funding we need to make critically important investments in K-12 and higher education,” Peacock said.

Peacock said if the state wants to spend more on transportation, lawmakers and the governor should consider raising gas taxes or vehicle registration fees.

“It’s time to ask the transportation program to start paying its way,” Peacock said. “We need to rely more on user fees if we’re not going to find some substantial efficiencies within the DOT budget.”

It would be hard, if not impossible, for future legislatures and governors to repay the general fund with road fund dollars. That’s because voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2014 prohibiting such transfers, a point Vos pointed out Tuesday.

“With the transportation fund constitutional amendment, once we put revenues into that fund, they basically are locked up,” Vos said.