Now’s the time to repair Maine’s transportation funding plan
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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He’s in-house counsel to numerous companies in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
Plan the work, work the plan.
It’s pretty easy. That’s most likely why it doesn’t appear to get traction in Augusta.
The truth that your entire Legislature has the potential to show over each two years creates incentives for short-term pondering. It’s exacerbated by time period limits, as elected officers have an eight-year horizon to advocate for the adjustments they consider in.
The result’s a bit chaotic, with the difficulty du jour taking up headlines and a focus. There is no such thing as a targeted, thought-out plan being labored on over a few years.
The exception is the Maine Division of Transportation.
You may go onto their web site and see their multi-year work plan. They are going to forecast the initiatives they intend to work on, when, and the way a lot they’re anticipated to value.
It’s an instance of presidency run effectively.
Probably the greatest issues {that a} plan supplies is the flexibility to align wants with sources. That’s the place the Maine GOP is available in.
Maine’s transportation infrastructure wants work, to place it charitably. To totally fund MaineDOT’s proposed work plan, they want a further $265 million. Yearly.
Gov. Janet Mills, to her credit score, has proposed a one-time fee of $400 million in her pending spending plan. Legislative Republicans wish to as a substitute establish everlasting, ongoing funding for transportation wants. They wish to transfer cash from the final fund into the freeway fund.
For a lot of the previous decade, Maine has routinely borrowed cash by way of bond questions to fulfill transportation wants. They’re remarkably widespread. However right here’s the catch: the debt service on these bonds will get paid out of the final fund.
So, as a sensible matter, we’ve been transferring cash from the final fund to the freeway fund for years. We’ve simply been doing it not directly.
As headlines have made clear, Augusta is flush with money proper now. It’s the precise proper time to deal with aligning our sources with our wants. And the wants recognized by MaineDOT require a further $265 million yearly.
Check out their work plan. Individuals can choose for themselves on whether or not these are the correct infrastructure priorities. Are a few of these investments a better or decrease precedence than new social welfare packages? These are the arduous questions we elect individuals to deal with.
For Republicans, they appear resolved that transportation spending is a core operate of presidency. That’s the reason Rep. John Andrews sponsored a constitutional modification requiring half the gross sales taxes from automobiles be devoted to transportation funding. Some Democrats appear to agree, because the Tax Committee voted unanimously that the measure ought to go.
But, within the last days of this session, it seems a struggle is brewing. Republicans are standing agency of their perception that that is the correct time for a long-term resolution. Legislative Democrats are reluctant to take action. It’s shaping as much as be a serious challenge simply when they need to be leaving city.
Republicans wished to have a reputable voice on the desk of state spending, together with on the non-transportation finances. Democrats denied them that chance by taking part in hard-ball with their majority finances technique. So, now, turnabout is honest play.
Republicans can and will maintain quick to their place in favor of everlasting transportation funding. Plan the work, work the plan. And with the correct plan, the GOP may also help MaineDOT fund their work plan to assist get Maine again to work.
