Kennedy, in speaking
to the Transportation Funding Task Force, noted that the public was wary of
any additional funding requests for roads building and maintenance unless it
was convinced these were carried out in a fashion that reflected true needs of
the state, citing other spending uses of capital funds on construction projects
that very few would call an important priority. The group is to meet four times
prior to next year’s legislative session to give recommendations on how enable
the state to eat into a roughly $10
billion backlog of roads requests.
If Kennedy meant he was open to a
tax increase to do this, he would be joining for him unusual company. Also on
the panel is a former secretary of the Department of Transportation and
Development, Kam Movassaghi, who made it a habit during his tenure than encompassed
the last six years of the former Gov. Mike
Foster Administration to call
for tax increases. Even now, one recommendation he wants the group to
forward would be to replace the existing regular gasoline tax, the main source
of funding for roads, of 16 cents per gallon with an 8 percent levy, which at present
oil prices would work out to be around a 50 percent increase, arguing that the
tax has less than half of its purchasing power when it was enacted three
decades ago.