Tax is a four-letter word in Mississippi, especially among those who self-identify as Conservative. So, when the Mississippi Economic Council, the state’s chamber of commerce, comes out in favor of some sort of tax increase, you can bet a crisis looms on the horizon.
Tuesday, the MEC’s Pacesetter Tour made its annual stop in the Golden Triangle, Roughly 140 local business people and city leaders turned out for the luncheon at EMCC’s Mayhew campus to hear what MEC considers to be its priorities this year.
Chief among them is something calls “Excelerate Mississippi.” The title may be vague; its intentions are not. It is a call for the Legislature to commit $375 million to repair the state’s roads and bridges over the next 10 years. MEC says its research indicates there are currently 938 state-maintained bridges — including 33 in Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties — in need of repair. Another 2,593 bridges maintained by local governments — including 67 in our four Golden Triangle Counties — are in a similar state of disrepair. That means 100 bridges in the Golden Triangle are in need of repair.
MEC also says 24,591 miles of state roads need repairs as well.
Although MEC officials are careful not to dictate precisely how the state is supposed to come up with that money, especially this year. State revenues continue to fall below projections and this week, Gov. Phil Bryant proposed a $75-million “adjustment” in the budget to make up for it, a plan that includes cutting $39.8 million from current budget and $35.2 million from the state’s “rainy day” fund.
Given that, it might seem ill-timing for the MEC to propose such a large and expensive project.
That MEC is making this recommendation anyway tells us just how critical a problem our highway infrastructure has become.
Some things simply cannot be ignored or delayed. Even with the bad revenue news, the time has come to do something. The longer we delay the more dangerous our roads/bridges become and the more expensive it will be to get them in good working order.
That means raising taxes or going into debt or both.
The MEC, mindful of how prickly legislators can be when the idea of raising taxes, offers several suggestions. All of them are, in one form or another, tax increases — everything from increasing vehicle registration fees, to increasing the general sales tax, creating a new sales tax that exclusively applies to fuel purchase, increasing rental car fees and, finally, increasing the excise tax on fuel.
There is also the possibility of raising those funds through the state’s annual bond program.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Smith, R-Columbus, has mentioned that possibility.
But the most logical choice, it seems, is the raise the excise tax on fuel. It is especially appealing now as fuel prices continue to fall dramatically. A 1.5-cent increase in the state’s gas tax would fund the repairs without creating a real economic hardship on drivers.
Our gas tax is the sixth lowest in the nation and there hasn’t been an increase in that tax in 20 years.
The Legislature could decide to choose that option or, perhaps, a combination of one or more of those tax increases to provide the funds need to fix our roads and bridges.
No one would buy a new car and then refuse to get oil changes or tune-ups because of the cost.
In the same vein, we cannot simply ignore this problem or put it off on the grounds of its expense.
We must act now and recognize that in this case “tax” is not a four-letter word, but a practical reality.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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