Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) A group of the region’s foremost budget experts is out with its recommendation to keep Metro alive and well far into the future: A new dedicated tax throughout the region, suggested to take the form of a new 1% sales tax regionwide. Even at the beginning stages of the discussion, however, roadblocks to a new tax were starting to form from state legislators and others resistant to the political ramifications of instituting another tax.
Budget officials made the dire circumstances clear: If nothing changes in the way Metro is funded, jurisdictions will not have enough money to fund it as early as January 2019. That’s why many have been clamoring for a dedicated source of revenue, something that is not dependent on the whims and varying financial health of local jurisdictions. D.C. CFO Jeff DeWitt said that dedicated funding could take many forms – a sales tax, a property tax, or a gas tax, among many others. He recommended a sales tax thanks to its simplicity and prevalence elsewhere around the country.
“It’s used in most other transit systems because of how simple it is,” DeWitt told WMAL following the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments meeting in which the report was presented. “People understand one cent on the dollar, and it’s easy to administer.”
DeWitt said a sales tax is also preferable since it grows with the economy – just as Metro will.
However, others railed against the one-size-fits-all approach of the same regionwide tax. State legislatures would need to give local jurisdictions permission to tax themselves, even if the tax doesn’t apply statewide.
“Virginia prides itself as being a low tax state…there’s a lot of people who want to maintain that,” State Senator George Barker (D-Alexandria) said. “Even if one part of the state is moving in that direction, they see that as damaging to the Commonwealth as a whole.”
Barker said he is not sold on the sales tax idea, instead preferring to go to Richmond with more than one option.
“I can’t go down there and say ‘we’ve decided here’s what you have to do for us,'” he said.
Two Democratic Congressmen, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Gerry Connolly of Virginia, agreed.
“It doesn’t have to necessarily be the same source from every jurisdiction,” Hoyer told the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. “But it must be dedicated and it must be a stream that can be relied upon.”
Connolly said flexibility may be necessary to see the new plan to reality.
“I don’t know why we have to be rigid about (this),” Connolly said. “I think most of us want to make Metro work. How we get there has to be debated, and the differences among us respected.”
Another big factor may be the coming changes in the region’s political landscape. Virginia elects a new governor later this year, and Maryland has the opportunity to do the same in 2018. Montgomery County will also see a large turnover next year, with a new county executive along with an overhaul of its county council, thanks to the passage of term limits. Many of those soon-to-be-ousted council members have hinted at a run for County Executive, potentially making a new tax a thornier issue than originally anticipated.
However, Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner said the usual political ramifications of a new tax shouldn’t apply in this situation.
“What makes this different is that this is, if you will, a lock box tax. This is a tax for a specific purpose that I think most people believe is fundamental to Montgomery County’s future,” Berliner said. “Those of us who are entrusted with leading our county, I believe, understand this, and if there are consequences, there are consequences. That can’t get in our way of doing what we believe to be right for our county.”
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