The Wausau Daily Herald published an editorial Sunday expressing essentially the same opinon that I shared on The New Vernacular in September. The Daily Herald adds a detail that I missed in my critique: the $30 million in tax dollars lost during the holiday would come directly from the state transportation budget. The state would either need to cut funding for transportation or get that money from somewhere else. And as the budget debates this summer show, the state coffers aren’t overflowing with extra cash.

Why is that a bad idea?
For starters, the bill would eliminate the tax but not the annual increase built into the state’s transportation budget. See, every penny of Wisconsin’s gasoline tax is dedicated to road construction, repair and maintenance. Those costs keep increasing, so the transportation budget keeps increasing.

The senators who introduced the bill instead want to take money from the general fund and use it to fill the hole left by eliminating the gas tax increase. In other words, they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul because taxes are taxes - they all come out of our pockets.

The hole would be about $30 million a year - the first year. It would be about $60 million the second year, $90 million the third and so forth.

And what does eliminating the 0.8 cent increase do for you?
If you drive an average car the average number of miles every year, about 15,000, eliminating the annual increase would save you about $4.
That’s right. Four bucks.

That four bucks translates into $30 million when multiplied by every motorist in the state - including those who drive much more than average.

Those millions buy us pothole repair, snow plows, transit systems, safety programs and other transportation benefits.

…We can eliminate the 0.8 cent increase, but we’ll have to either cut $30 million in road services or make up the money from somewhere else.

Wausau Daily Herald: Tinkering with gas tax is no solution

Badger Herald: Nass seeks gas holiday