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Brad Bollinger: Strapped for cash, some in Legislature would raid gas tax

Key transportation projects in the North Bay could be stalled if the Legislature is allowed to dip into gasoline tax funds that voters twice have said they do not want touched.

Facing a $15 billion deficit with no resolution in sight, rumors have been flying around Sacramento that $1 billion could be raided from transportation funds generated from gasoline taxes.

One official said last week that raiding the fund could delay transportation projects in Sonoma by one to two years.

A coalition of business groups and government agencies, including some in Marin and Sonoma counties, has written the Legislature urging it not to raid the gas tax funds.

The group points out that voters have said twice, once with Proposition 42 in 2002 and again with Proposition 1A in 2006, that gasoline taxes must be used for transportation projects.

These are desperate times in Sacramento. But the coalition points out that “borrowing gas tax funds that must be repaid in three years is no way to fix a structural deficit.”

It also notes that raiding the fund “will mean the death of many high-priority projects” and “will eliminate thousands of jobs and stall economic growth at the worst possible time.”

The group adds: “At a time when construction is sagging, infrastructure projects are creating jobs in a sector that sorely needs them. Raiding transportation funds will further destroy an already struggling industry and severely hamper any hope of economic recovery.”

It is not as though Sacramento has been on a budget diet that would justify such a raid.

For 2008-2009, the total California budget was $141 billion, a 31 percent increase in just three years over 2004-2005 when it was $107 billion. The state only broke through the $100 billion budget milestone in 2002-2003.

The real issue is not that Sacramento has a tax problem, it has a spending problem. And until it comes to grips with it, these kinds of structural budget crises will continue.

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Brad Bollinger is editor in chief and associate publisher of the Business Journal. He can be reached at bbollinger

@northbaybusinessjournal.com or 707-521-4251.