Comments on: California Legislature Passes Legislation to Restore STA Funding

By: About Face: Governor Signs Gas Tax Swap Legislation, After All « Transbay Blog

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:45:33 +0000

[...] X8 6 and AB X8 9 is the pair of budget bills (explained in more detail in this earlier post) that executes a gas tax swap. The Governor initially proposed a completely inadequate gas tax [...]

By: Governor Will Veto Gas Tax Swap Legislation « Transbay Blog

Governor Will Veto Gas Tax Swap Legislation « Transbay Blog — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:08:43 +0000

[...] a comment » Governor Schwarzenegger has indicated he will veto the legislative measures that would have executed the gas tax swap mechanism, while restoring some of the funding that transit agencies lost when the State zeroed out State [...]

By: lyqwyd

lyqwyd — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:53:16 +0000

@Eric

thanks for the clarification!

By: Garret

Garret — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:36:20 +0000

Typical “bait & switch” tactics. This excise TAX will be adjusted in future years to provide what the sales tax would have provided. It is a “thinly disguised effort to avoid the Proposition 13 requirement that tax increases be approved by a two-thirds legislative majority.”

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:14:31 +0000

The news lately has just been fairly depressing, so I wanted to seize on an opportunity to be more upbeat and lift things somewhat from the doom and gloom, though based on your comment I may have given off somewhat of the wrong impression.

It’s less that this is a “good thing,” and more that this is a lukewarm thing, relative to a much larger mess. There is more to this legislation, and to the situation generally, than what I’ve described here. There are just too many topics to write about it. I’m behind on some posts I’d rather be writing, and the amount of time I can set aside to blog has been very limited.

Suffice it to say that there are certainly flaws with the legislation, and it’s not what I would’ve drafted if my opinion counted for anything. It bears all the stamps of compromise. That said, the STA funds were zeroed out for at least the next few years, and this legislation does provide a funding stream, as well as an immediate appropriation, for transit. While it won’t make up for past losses, it provides a reprieve for struggling agencies, and hopefully in the meantime, we’ll move forward on legislative solutions that will give localities more authority to generate additional revenue.

Should the Legislature and the Governor somehow agree on a transit funding solution that is superior (and please don’t get me wrong — there are many scenarios better than this one), I would instead support that solution. In this economic and political climate, we’re probably not going to get what we’d ideally like to see.

The discussion of how we fund transit in California moving forward is really a work in progress, and there are many tools that have to date been left unexplored.

By: lyqwyd

lyqwyd — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:55:18 +0000

It’s not clear to me how this is a good thing. It seems that overall we lose all dedicated funding for transit, and in exchange we get a fraction of what has already been stolen from transit back.

I could certainly be misunderstanding the situtation.

By: david vartanoff

david vartanoff — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:53:52 +0000

Actually the Governator should be indicted and tried for embezzlement. While this new scheme may sound nice, keeping it revenue neutral is nowhere as good as the old deal when not stolen. We should also ask what will happen to what was called the “spillover” fund.

By: Edmund

Edmund — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:07:20 +0000

This is awesome news! Of course, the Govenator being the Govenator, I’m sure he’s gonna shoot this down as he typically does.

Forgive me for being a dummy, but I’m confused by the excise tax. How does it relate to the prices I see at the pump (or does it)?

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:33:45 +0000

Just tried calling, but forgot that it was a furlough Friday. How I love California.