Eckels abandons conservative principles on gas tax

There's an old phrase used by academics who study bureaucratic/organizational politics, "where you sit determines where you stand."

The phrase means that institutional pressures frequently shape the preferences and advocacy of policymakers, sometimes as much as or more than governing philosophy or ideology.

Lately, that phrase might just as well apply to self-described elected conservatives in Texas who talk a good game about limited government yet support expansion of government when it comes to their own pet projects.

The crew at KSEV-700/Lone Star Times/CLOUT has done an admirable job exposing pols who claim to be for limited government and for protecting taxpayers, yet refuse to support property tax appraisal caps because they love to have ever-increasing revenue while still being able to say "I won't raise your tax rates." They've even managed to get some local councils and mayors to reverse previous stands and go on the record in support of appraisal caps.

However, as a further sign that even the seemingly most conservative pols in Texas want tax revenues to grow much too easily, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels this week came out in favor of "indexing" the state's gas tax to inflation (in his case, a "construction index"). He argues that the gas tax hasn't kept pace with inflation, and therefore that road construction funding (and hence construction) has lagged. He further contends that gas tax funds shouldn't be diverted to other purposes.

While we agree with Judge Eckels that the gas tax should only be used to fund transportation, we're a little shocked that a notable conservative would urge passage of a taxing mechanism by which taxpayers are forced to hand over more and more of their money without politicians ever having to take a tough vote. Certainly, it makes life easier for politicians who want more money to spend on pet projects, but politicians who call themselves conservatives (like Eckels) and say they favor limited government should be focused on making it harder for politicians to spend the earnings of taxpayers, not easier.

We can understand that Eckels would like Harris County to receive more funding for road construction. So would we. But we don't support mechanisms that transfer ever increasing amounts of money to the state (whether by property tax appraisal creep or "indexing" of the gas tax) without a vote by our elected officials. Those decisions ought to be hard for elected officials, and the fact it is hard is reflected by the fact that while Eckels laments that the gas tax hasn't kept pace with inflation, he is unwilling to state in his column how much more Texans would be paying for each gallon of gasoline if the scheme he's advocating had been in place since 1991.

As someone who calls himself a conservative, Judge Eckels is wrong to support this mechanism, which isn't conservative at all. If the state really needs to raise more road construction revenues, then let our state leaders make the tough taxing and spending decisions for which they were elected.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/19/05 05:55 PM | Houston People | Print | Comments (8)

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