So what does Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina believe? We previously noted the unfortunate flap over the “truther” comments. More directly troubling to the job she is seeking is her campaign noting strong support for massive, unaccountable tax hikes and fee increases designed to fund more government boondoggle spending.
UPDATE: This blog post has been re-titled. The campaign is retracting their position, noting: “Campaign staff checked the wrong box on this questionnaire after it was discussed internally with Debra and the policy team.” Considering how important of an issue this is, it is unfortunate, even shocking, that they marked “strongly favor” on a tax increase question. The campaign adds: “Debra absolutely opposes the local option tax.”
We leave the original blog post below; it stands as factually accurate based on the campaign’s own response to the Voters’ Guide.
She has said in the past she opposed hiking gasoline taxes, but in the Liberty Institute Voters’ Guide she is the only GOP candidate reported to “strongly favor” the TLOTA gas-tax hikes and fee increases.
You’ll recall that the “Texas Local Option Transportation Act” was a massive tax-grab favored by taxpayer-funded lobbyists, a small number of big-businesses and a host of city officials from Dallas-Fort Worth. The tax was designed to funnel more money into light-rail and other mass transit money wasters. The legislation was championed by big-tax Sen. John Carona and Rep. Vicki Truitt.
Every conservative group in the state opposed it, as did every conservative legislator.
A recent Fort Worth Star Telegram poll found only 3.9 percent of the people supported the tax, which might explain why even Truitt is now “mum on whether she’ll back” the bill in the future.
Over at the Stop The Hike blog, they write about this tax-grab:
Taxpayers realized that raising taxes and fees does not translate into infrastructure nor does raising taxes address current misuse of funds generated by gas taxes. Not to mention the disconnect between saying you are for lower taxes and smaller government only to turn around and say it’s okay for those folks to raise taxes.
It is not sufficient for a candidate to say won’t raise taxes, but will let someone else do it. That’s why Americans for Tax Reform says voting for the TLOTA is a violation of their Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
There is no denying congestion is a problem, but the answer is not to create ever more taxing authorities. She might like the misleading “local option,” but as governor her job is to protect taxpayers and not give the taxers more avenues into taxpayers’ wallets to fund worthless spending.
What she should support is what taxpayer advocates, sensible transportation experts and the conservative movement has been saying for more than a year.
First, end gasoline tax diversions — that’s 20% or more of every gas tax dollar going to something other than road construction and maintenance. Second, require real transparency to every level of government so people can see how transportation dollars are actually being spent. Third, direct dollars only to projects that actually relieve congestion and provide for mobility improvement. And fourth, hold the spenders accountable.
