This is a good move by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. It needs to be made permanent.

Texas would be barred from turning existing interstate highways into toll roads by a provision in a major spending bill approved Wednesday by the Senate.

The amendment by Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison would delay for one year a plan by Texas transportation officials to turn to toll roads. State officials have said they need the revenue to help defray an $86 billion shortfall in highway funding for the state.

Hutchison argued that it is unfair to turn highways already paid for by taxpayers into toll roads, and she has pledged to press for a permanent ban.

Her measure, tied to the one-year, $104.6 billion transportation and housing spending bill approved by the Senate, would be in effect only for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

"Today we protected Texas taxpayers from paying twice for a highway," Hutchison said.

The current plan from the Perry Administration is to take roads that Texans have paid for, sell them to private companies who would then make Texans pay to use them, so that the state could use the money from the sale to build more toll roads that Texans would have to pay to use. In other words, Texans will end up paying three times for highways we have already bought and paid for.

Posted by: Greg at 10:09 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 236 words, total size 1 kb.