Pennsylvania has a money problem. Everyone involved seems to accept that.

But what no one seems able to agree on, is what the nature of that money problem is.

And even when you answer that question, there’s disagreement – different solutions being proposed by different people with different agendas.

“Land Line Now” has brought together all the sides, all the choices, all the debate, and tried to answer the basic question – how do we fix Pennsylvania?

It’s your dime

Who’s paying the money may be the easiest part of the Pennsylvania puzzle to solve.

The answer: It’s you.

Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, offered a few numbers:

“The typical one-truck owner-operator, the one-truck businessman pays $17,500 every year in federal and state highway user fees – $17,500 dollars,” he said.  “That’s a gob of money.

“Every truck that enters Pennsylvania pays fuel tax on every mile they turn in the state of Pennsylvania. They pay the registration fee for every mile they run in Pennsylvania. We don’t get any free lunch. And people that drive cars in Pennsylvania will pay in the area of $700 to $800 every year for this state’s highway system.”

And it’s not just truckers who recognize this fact. A recent posting on the Clarion, Pennsylvania, Chamber of Commerce Web site says this: “A single local independent trucking company reports that in 2006, the 50 trucks in his fleet paid $218,000 in fuel tax, $77,500 for license plates, $27,500 for combined use tax, plus additional taxes on tires.”

So where is all that money going once it reaches the highway trust fund?

Much of it is diverted.

Princeton University’s WordNet Dictionary defines the word “divert” this way: “To send on a course or in a direction different from the planned or intended one.”

And that’s certainly what happens with a huge portion of America’s highway dollars – especially in Pennsylvania. We’ve shown that.

That fact is what irritates – even angers – so many people in the trucking industry. OOIDA’s Mike Joyce explains.

“Roads aren’t free; there are no free ways or free highways out there,” he said. “I think it’s important to point that out. I mean, all (truckers) are paying fuel tax, and heavy vehicle use tax, excise tax, tire taxes; we’ve talked about it countless times.

“Those roads are not free ways or free roads whatsoever; we are paying into the system. I think what our highway users, what our members have been saying to us is, tell us why you need additional money and resources to pay for these infrastructure improvement projects? What have you done with the resources we’ve already provided to you?

“Pennsylvania is one of the two highest fuel taxes in this country. What are they doing with the money, is it all going to get diverted?)”

Transportation enhancements are a big part of that problem. Millions upon millions of dollars from the highway trust fund are dedicated to biking and hiking trails, museums, historic sites, street beautification projects, and on and on.

Those enhancements aren’t the only thing leaching away road money. Mass transit plays a part as well.

State Rep. David Argall says the running deficits of Pennsylvania’s mass transit systems have been a continual headache for legislators and others in government.

“We’ve been trying to deal with the problem of transportation funding for several years, ever since the governor grabbed hundreds of millions of federal transportation dollars and sent them to mass transit, primarily SEPTA,” he said, referring to Philadelphia’s mass transit agency. “Normally, those dollars are used for bridges and highways all across the state.

“SEPTA and the other transit agencies keep coming to us and saying we need more, we need more, we need more – and yet, we have road projects being canceled, we have bridges falling apart, and so we’re trying to grapple with both ends of that problem, but I don’t think that we’re there yet.”

The year 2005 was a landmark in that regard. Faced with massive deficits in mass transit – especially in his hometown of Philadelphia – Gov. Ed Rendell ordered the diversion of $412 million in federal highway money into mass transit.

In that same year, documents from the Federal Highway Administration showed more than $121 million of federal highway money provided to Pennsylvania mass transit in the form of “grants in aid.”

That brought the amount of highway dollars diverted to mass transit systems in only that one state in just that one year to a grand total of more than $500 million – a cool half billion.

But even that’s not the end of the state’s diversions of highway funds. Argall offered another example.

“One example would be right now we spend about $500 million a year to fund our state police,” he said. “That comes out of a fund that was primarily designed to fix roads and bridges. It’s your driver’s license fee, your annual inspection. So we’re looking to see if we can begin to wean the state police off of the motor license fund.

“Let’s say we do it $50 million a year for 10 years,” he added. “That then produces a half a billion dollars for the roads and bridges. I think that’s one example of something that just about everyone will agree to.”

Diversions of highway dollars to state police are just the beginning.

All in all, using research gathered by OOIDA from Federal Highway Administration documents, we were able to find more than 15 different budget categories in Pennsylvania that used more than 2.6 billion highway dollars in 2005 alone – but didn’t spend one of those dollars on pavement.

One question, no answers

Everyone agrees that Pennsylvania’s highway funding is not up to the task of meeting the state’s needs. But there’s little agreement among officials when it comes to solving that problem.

In February 2005, just as he was diverting hundreds of millions in highway funds toward mass transit, Gov. Ed Rendell created a special transportation funding commission.

When they reported back, they suggested that the state needs somewhere between $800 million and $2.2 billion in additional transportation money.

The commission offered a number of possible revenue sources as a way to generate that money – a tax on oil companies, a higher fuel tax, increased sales taxes, raising several general taxes, and, unfortunately, tolling interstates and privatizing highways.

This year, part of that report came to fruition in the form of Act 44 – the law that authorizes tolling on I-80 in the state.

Despite the backing of the governor, and a positive vote in the state legislature, that plan may be in trouble.

Local officials across the state are holding meetings denouncing the tolling plan. The Federal Highway Administration has put approval on hold.

And OOIDA’s Mike Joyce says the very federal legislation the state proposes to use to allow tolling in fact will likely bar the Pennsylvania plan.

“Part of that legislation says that if you’re going to convert an existing road into a toll road, you are not allowed to take interstate maintenance funds out of the highway trust fund,” Joyce said. “We’re still doing the calculation on what that could mean for Pennsylvania, but ultimately, it’ll probably mean millions and millions of dollars that current comes from the federal highway trust fund in interstate maintenance funds to I-80 to maintain that road.

“Pennsylvania would lose that ability to get that money … which appropriately, they should lose that money.

“But it’s unfortunate for the citizens and taxpayers of Pennsylvania that have paid into that highway over the years and have built that highway over the years to not be able to get those resources, and instead have to pay additional resources,” he added. “There should be a groundswell of people who want a tax refund on the portion that they pay into the federal highway trust fund and into Pennsylvania highway funding; there should be a groundswell of people who want a refund for as many miles as they drive along that road.”

Act 44 may well be on its way to oblivion. But other plans involving tolling and privatization – are still being actively pursued.

State Rep. Rick Geist is the architect of the state’s most prominent highway privatization effort – House Bill 555. During a recent conversation, he explained why he supports that plan.

“The Federal Highway Trust Fund goes into deficit next year,” he said. “That means the states have to come up with more revenues. Pennsylvania right now is way, way short. We need more tools in the toolbox. And there’s not any one right tool that does it all.”

You may recognize a particular phrase in Rep. Geist’s statement – he said, “We need more tools in the toolbox.”

That metaphor was first used by Richard Capka, the head of the Federal Highway Administration, in an endorsement of privatization. Since then, it’s become a battle cry for public officials who seek to justify turning America’s highways over to private corporations.

OOIDA’s Todd Spencer has frequently spoken out about the push for highway privatization. And he’s more than familiar with the cry for “more tools in the toolbox.”

Spencer has consistently countered that the only tool mentioned in those conversations is privatization – cutting diversions or ending enhancements never seems to be among the tools touted by federal officials.

It begs the question: What other tools are out there?

State Rep. David Argall thinks he has one. And it involves working with the money the state already has, and spending that money in a different way.

“One of the things I would like to see us do is to stop this governor or any future governor from ever again diverting money,” he said. “In this case, Gov. Rendell has sent almost a half a billion dollars in federal highway funds that normally would have gone to bridges and highways. Instead, he used that money to bail out mass transit systems. I think that’s wrong, and I think the legislature needs to act to make sure that is never done again.”

That’s a position that most truckers – and that OOIDA – would agree with.

But for OOIDA’s Todd Spencer, and for many others, the debate over highway funding goes far beyond mass transit, or any other single issue.

As Spencer sees things, the highway funding problem in the Keystone state is a case of misplaced priorities and mistaken impressions.

“What’s happening here is we’re hearing that, ‘wait a minute, there’s not nearly enough money to meet the state’s needs and obligations’,” Spencer said. “The fact of the matter is, there’s gobs of money. It’s where that money’s being spent. And what we have here in Pennsylvania is a bucket that’s filled full of water, and it’s got holes in the bottom of it. And the governor thinks he’s got a neat plan to put a whole lot more water in that bucket. But the rest of the story is he’s going to make those holes even bigger.”

If you think this is just an outsider’s perspective, think again.

When Gov. Rendell’s Transportation Funding and Reform Commission issued a report, they recommended many of the approaches the governor is now undertaking – including some of the provisions in Act 44.

But they also said something else. In their own report, the commission wrote this: “The commission concludes that no additional funding should be provided for highways, bridges and transit unless a series of parallel actions are taken to reform funding structure and a number of transportation business practices. Structural program reforms and operational efficiencies are critical elements of a long-term financial solution.”

During a recent press conference, U.S. Rep. John Peterson -- an outspoken critic of how highway funds are spent in his home state – echoed that statement.

“I’m not for education being funded out of highway money, I’m not for health care being funded out of highway money, and I’m sure as hell not for mass trasit – two agencies, PATT and SEPTA, filled with patronage, filled with inefficiencies, filled with high price salaries of people that don’t work real hard – I’m not for funding them out of the sacred money that should be for highways and bridges,” Peterson said.

Later in that press conference, he became even more specific.

“I think the first thing we have to do is stop using highway money for anything but highways. That would give us three-quarter of a billion, today,” he said. “Most states don’t fund 73 percent of the state police (out of highway funds), many of them don’t fund it at all. That’s crime fighting. The majority of the state police work has nothing to do with highways.

“This year, we added a few expenses that weren’t noticed by many,” he added. “$4 million this year to fund weights and measures out of the highway fund. $4 million to fund the tourism centers out of the highway fund for the first time. $4 million for maintenance on state police barracks, a first timer. $40 million this year for a first timer to hire the new troops.

“Highway monies need to be for highways first. I’m not so sure that we’re too far off of the funds needed. I’m pretty familiar with highway funding.”

That sounds simple – just stop spending the money on anything that’s not pavement.

But in the real world – the political world – things are rarely that simple.

OOIDA’s Todd Spencer has fought for truckers in that political world for many years. And he has observed – time and again – how local officials, starved for cash to fund what they see as necessary projects, pushed hard to obtain highway money.

Spencer says that – the forces competing for access to highway cash – is just as big a problem as the officials who are doling out the dollars.

“For everything that’s in every program, there is a constituency that thinks it’s absolutely vital,” he said. “The constituency thinks the money is vital.

“For illustration purposes … money collected at weigh stations here in Missouri goes into local school systems. Well, the local school systems think that money is absolutely vital. Now, where it comes from, they could care less.

“In Michigan, it’s the libraries benefit from tickets that truckers pay and weigh violations,” he added. “They think it’s vital. Again, there’s a constituency for everything.”

What’s missing, Spencer adds, is what he calls a “united public dialog,” a national discussion regarding how the federal and state governments pay for highways and other transportation needs.

“When I say expand the dialog, expand the discussion, I’m talking about educating the public,” he said. “We as truckers know more about how highways and bridges are funded than most people do.

“Most people just don’t really understand that it is their taxes that go into this system, and that when the money that they pay doesn’t go for what they pay for, well, then they’ve gotten a raw deal, too.

“We need to bring the public into this discussion where they’re on our side, to get any traction from lawmakers.”

That’s a discussion that will become much more urgent in 2009.

That’s when Congress will reauthorize highway funding with a new, six-year bill. And Mike Joyce of OOIDA’s Washington, DC, office says that at that time, federal lawmakers – and citizens – need to far more closely examine this part of the federal budget.

“Congress is really going to have to tighten its purse strings. And they’re going to really have to look very closely at projects like this,” he said. “Are these important? Are these integral to the economic development, the future development of our country in a very competitive world marketplace?

“You know, our transportation infrastructure has made us the envy of the world. But it could be something in the future that begins to inhibit our growth, inhibit our ability to compete in the global marketplace.

“These projects are something that’s really going to have to be looked at closely. … There are a lot of projects throughout the country transportation-wise that could benefit from those resources and those funds.”

--By Mark H. Reddig, host, “Land Line Now”
mark_reddig@landlinemag.com

Originally aired on: December 21, 2007