Patrick Says He’s ‘Not Hostile’ To Gas Tax
The Democratic House leadership has yet to publicly settle on a means of generating new revenue for transportation financing needs, but Gov. Deval Patrick on the radio Thursday said he knows Speaker Robert DeLeo is being “urged" to pay for it with the gas tax.
Patrick said he is not “hostile” to that idea, but added that he does not believe the gas tax alone can be relied on to generate the amount of revenue necessary to sustainably fund transportation into the future.
“I’m not hostile to the gas tax,” Patrick said during the hour-long, call-in show Thursday afternoon with hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braude. “I’ve told (DeLeo) I am not closed to anything. It may be at the end of the day, the solution here is a blend of different things and I get that,” Patrick said.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has said a modest gas tax hike and transportation fee increases could be enough to generate $800 million for transportation, but Patrick maintains that the state’s 21-cent gas tax would have to be tripled to support his plan for $1 billion a year in new investments and would make Massachusetts uncompetitive with neighboring states.
Patrick did admit that while there is momentum behind raising taxes to pay for transportation, he has “more work to do on the education side” to drum up support among lawmakers for early and higher education spending.
The governor drew a line in the sand at regional equity, saying he would not support an eventual solution that pays for transportation improvements in Greater Boston but not in other parts of the state that have been neglected.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments