David Michael Miller
By some accounts, Wisconsin has among the very worst roads in the nation, and traffic fatalities are edging back up after years of decline. Making roads safer is not rocket science, but current politics might make it a challenge.
In 2013 a bipartisan commission recommended a series of specific proposals that would solve the problem. It included a modest gas tax increase, but also some innovative and progressive proposals like a small fee per mile driven, regional transit authorities, and more funding for public bus systems and bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
I was a minority member of that commission, appointed by then-Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona). Most of my colleagues were appointed by Gov. Scott Walker or other Republican leaders. Yet, it was an earnest group. We listened to detailed analysis by Department of Transportation staff, had all our questions answered and listened to public testimony at hearings throughout the state.
In the end, John Antaramian, then between stints as mayor of Kenosha and the only other Democrat-appointed member, and I voted for the final report along with all the Republican-appointed members. While Antaramian and I might have thought there was too much road expansion in the recommendations, we joined the others because the report also contained ideas that we had suggested. We didn’t like everything, but we liked enough to give our support.
In short, the Wisconsin Transportation Finance and Policy Commission was a quaint throwback to a more innocent time. A bipartisan group that came together in the spirit of problem-solving, studied the issues, heard from the public and cobbled together a plan in which everybody found more things to like than not to like.
A process and plan like that could meet with only one reception in today’s blood sport politics: It was dead on arrival when introduced in early 2013.
But it is still out there, just waiting for someone in power to pick it up and use it. But now legislators are flailing away and a transportation budget might not even be passed on time, which would be around July 1.
The Legislature breaks down into roughly three groups on this issue.
The hardliners. Led by Gov. Walker, this group believes that no tax increases are necessary. They are willing to discuss interstate tolls, but that would require congressional action, would be expensive to set up, and would be years off. Their answer is to continue heavy borrowing, delay some big highway projects in the Milwaukee area and take more money from the general fund. That last option means there would be less money for education, environmental protection, health care and everything else the state does.
The practical pols. Led by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester ) and Joint Finance co-chair John Nygren (R-Marinette ), this group continues to press for transportation tax increases to solve the problem. They deserve credit for determination. Every time Walker draws an even deeper line in the sand, recently vowing to go so far as to veto the entire budget if it contains a gas tax increase, Vos and Nygren refuse to surrender. In fact, Vos compared Walker to the nation’s most unpopular politician when the governor tweeted his opposition to the latest proposal. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t call us instead of acting like Donald Trump and tweeting at us,” Vos said.
The Democrats. Waiting on the sidelines to be called into the game, minority Democrats should be honing their lists of progressive demands. Vos has raised the possibility of holding the transportation budget back while allowing the rest of the two-year state budget to pass on the regular timeline with only Republican votes. That would give him room to bypass the hardliners in his own caucus and work with Democrats to put together a transportation budget with the needed tax increases. But Vos’ counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), quickly rejected the idea of doing anything that needs help from the other party.
So, what we seem to have here is an impasse. The governor remains immovable on his promise to veto any tax increase while Vos is in no mood to back down. But if the speaker sticks to his position and delays a transportation budget into the fall, that starts to make everybody look bad — including the governor, who should be facing a tough reelection next year, assuming the Democrats actually scour up a candidate.
And if it gets to the point that Wisconsinites are talking about deteriorating road conditions and Packer football at the same time, then the immovable might just move. And if that happens, well, there is a pretty good bipartisan plan just sitting on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up.