Locke Won’t Give Up On Gas Tax Hike

Gov. Gary Locke said Tuesday he isn’t about to take “no” for an answer when it comes to boosting the gasoline tax.

The Democratic governor said he’ll work hard in the next eight months to build public support for an increase in the 23-cents-a-gallon tax, hoping to overcome opposition from the state Republican Party and tax foes.

A plan for a two-step, 7-cent increase failed in the closing days of the legislative session.

“I don’t think we should wait for two years” until the next elections are past, he told reporters. The economy could falter if deepening traffic problems are not addressed, he said.

The Republican chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee, Karen Schmidt of Bainbridge Island, was delighted that the governor is taking it on as a personal project. She was a big booster of the 7-cent increase.

If Locke is willing to invest some political capital into the effort, “it could be a strong factor,” she said. “Anything we can do to educate the public about how current dollars are spent, and the specific projects we are talking about with new revenue, would be helpful.

“I still think it’s a viable option. There has been a barrage of misinformation. We need to education our own people (in the Legislature) and as many as we can get to on the outside.”

She said she and her Senate counterpart, Eugene Prince, R-Thornton, may reconfigure the tax package to call for a smaller initial increase. A performance audit of the state Department of Transportation, including the ferry system, may identify savings that can be used for highway projects, she said.

Also, if the economy continues to boom, some of the resulting state tax surplus could be transferred to transportation purposes, she said. Locke said he plans to veto a $50 million transfer in the 1999 fiscal year, not wanting to take from schools or other general government purposes.

Prince couldn’t be reached for comment. Previously, he said he and a bipartisan group of backers in the Senate could have collected enough signatures to get the measure through the Senate. He was forced to drop the issue when the House couldn’t find the minimum number of votes and the two houses couldn’t agree on how to finance city and county roads.

Schmidt said the House was very close to assembling enough votes and that she and Prince will work on a compromise bill during the interim.

“It was a very close call,” Schmidt said. “I think we can reach common ground. It’s certainly worth the effort.”

She and Locke both said lawmakers could pass the tax increase and not get bounced from office.

The longer the state waits to begin needed highway construction, the more expensive the projects will be and “the more we put our economy and the environment at risk,” the governor said.

Along with expansion of the state’s Basic Health Plan for the working poor, transportation funding is the major unfinished business facing lawmakers in 1998, Locke said.

The governor also hinted of more vetoes of some of the Republican Legislature’s $78 million worth of assorted tax cuts, mostly for business. He already has vetoed a $30 million tax break for retailers as compensation for collecting taxes for the state.

If the state still has a large surplus next year, he will propose tax cuts of his own, such as a business tax break for companies that provide “family friendly” benefits such as child care for their workers.