Re: I-95 / I-85 VA-NC Toll-Road Plan Advances


"Scott M. Kozel" <kozelsm@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4409ECD4.F0ED726B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Fuel taxes
at least share the burden. Worrying about tolls are the same as those
who
worry about getting education money from a lottery, where the stated
purpose
of the lottery is undermined from Day 1. It would make more sense to
raise
the gas tax than to put tolls on our roads.

Motor fuel taxes are not well-coupled with specific road usage, and they
could just as easily be diverted to non-road uses as with any other tax.



Here is how taxes designed for road use were diverted. Note that they
are now used for transit and other uses but not for cars, even though there
are great shortages in needed maintenance projects.


N.C. Highway trust fund lawsuit still alive

By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer
March 3, 2006 5:54 pm

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The state Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a portion of
a lawsuit that accuses Gov. Mike Easley and legislators of violating the
North Carolina constitution by spending more than $200 million in highway
money to balance the budget earlier this decade.

The justices said they would hear arguments only on whether former
Transportation Secretary Jim Harrington and ex-Sen. Bill Goldston had the
legal standing as North Carolina citizens to sue over how revenues in the
Highway Trust Fund were used.

"This is a significant victory because the case is still alive," said Dan
Boyce, a Raleigh attorney helping represent Harrington and Goldston.

They sued in late 2002 after Easley took $80 million from the highway fund
to reduce a 2001-2002 budget shortfall and the Legislature transferred an
additional $125 million in 2002-03 to balance that year's spending plan.

The lawsuit contended that the constitution requires that trust fund
revenues be used exclusively for their stated purposes.

The Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in September in favor of Easley and
the state. The three-judge panel said neither Harrington nor Goldston could
pursue their legal action because they didn't contend they were harmed from
collecting the taxes that go into the fund or ask the money be returned to
the fund.

The justices agreed with state attorneys to dismiss any remaining arguments
on the constitutionality of Easley's action. But the court, in its first
round of opinions since Chief Justice Sarah Parker took office, said it
would consider whether the pair had legal standing to seek an advisory
opinion from the court on the transfer.

The Attorney General's Office, whose lawyers represent Easley and the state
in the lawsuit, had no comment Friday. Easley, however, has said in the past
that he had the right to use the money to meet his constitutional
requirement to balance the state's budget.

The Legislature passed a law in 2002 indicating its intention to repay the
$205 million over five years, but that provision was repealed last year.

The trust fund's money comes largely through a 3-percent use tax on vehicle
sales, a gasoline tax and title fees. Revenues are used primarily to build
urban loops, widen four-lane intrastate highways and improve secondary
roads. The fund is now also used for road maintenance and public transit.

Lawmakers had transferred an additional $170 million annually from the trust
fund to the general fund to hold harmless the state for an adjusted tax. The
annual transfer is now more than $252 million.

The justices likely would hear oral arguments on the case, but it wasn't
immediately clear when they would.

-------------

The annual transfer out of road projects continues, please note. Tolls are
the RESULT of such transfers and would just encourage MORE transfers out.
More tolls will not help. They will just replace existing money under
Governor Easley.





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