Tag Archives: Rick Perry
Texas Lawmakers Clash with State Toll Bureaucracies Over Cap on Toll Fines
Governor Greg Abbott decidedly departed from Perry’s policies and tapped the brakes on toll roads, most notably killing 15 new toll projects last fall. The majority of lawmakers have feverishly responded to constituents’ complaints about the costs to drive toll … Continue reading
Texans Reject Editorial Stating, ‘Tolls are Necessary, Deal with It’
Taxpayers should not stand for targeted, discriminatory toll taxes to be imposed against their will. This problem certainly isn’t unique to Texas. With the installation of public-private partnership (P3) guru and former government affairs official for Macquarie Capital, David Gribbin, as … Continue reading
Trump take heed: Toll roads a factor in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas elections
Trump’s anti-free trade message resonated because it hurt the American worker. Tolls likewise, hurt the American working class — and hard. Considering these three must-win states for a Republican president just tossed incumbents over toll projects, we trust Mr. Trump … Continue reading
Lone Star Rail Now Hitched to I-35 Toll Lane Debacle
If TxDOT magically pulls a rabbit out of its hat to have room at-grade for these tracks, not only were they misleading the public last year at the hearing, they’d be taking up the most valuable real estate in Texas and eliminating any hope of expanding general purpose lanes in the future, because now you’d either have to condemn billions in rail or billions in private commercial property in order to do it Continue reading
Spain-based Cintra’s SH-130 Toll Road, First and Only Leg of Trans-Texas Corridor, Goes Bankrupt
When it opened back in 2012, SH 130 had long been the poster child of Rick Perry’s failed toll road policies. At one point, the state-operated part of the tollway was so empty a distressed plane landed on it during peak hours. Lawmakers saddled Texas taxpayers with billions in debt and they hid it from the normal, open, public budgetary process. In other words, Texas lawmakers have balanced the budget, in part, because they have issued billions of taxpayer backed subsidies for private toll road companies, while hiding the costs from taxpayers and increasing costs and risks for taxpayers in the long term. Continue reading
Congress quietly moves NAFTA superhighway corridors forward in FAST Act
Such NAFTA international trade has all but destroyed the American manufacturing base, it threatens U.S. jobs and has contributed to stagnant wages since its inception in 1992. So the funding and expansion of the NAFTA trade corridors coupled with the porous southern border create another source of angst for American voters as they weigh the current presidential contenders. Continue reading
Texas Faces Drivers Tolling Backlash
Many drivers are confused about the term ‘managed lane.’ It can mean a high occupancy vehicle (HOV) component, a bus or transit lane element, restricted access during certain hours, and most often, a toll required in order for single occupancy vehicles to access the lane. Bottom line, managed lanes are designed to restrict access to the lanes based on some arbitrary criteria of government planners attempting to ‘manage’ your commute. Continue reading
Rick Perry’s Toll Road Legacy
In 2007, former Texas Governor Rick Perry was successful in passing rushed legislation to make the traffic forecasts for toll roads secret from the public. The public outcry against public-private partnerships had hit a feverish pitch and a moratorium on the controversial contracts that privatize public highways in sweetheart deals for 50 years sailed through the legislature. Continue reading
Texas Proposition 1 road funding ballot measure raises doubts, as oil production drops
The euphoria lawmakers felt last year after placing a Constitutional amendment on the ballot for Texas voters to decide if they wanted to raid half of the state’s oil and gas severance tax on new oil wells and divert those revenues to the State Highway Fund, without ending existing diversions of the gasoline tax…
Anti-toll candidates sweep key races in Texas
Abbott will get two new appointees to the Transportation Commission right out of the gate in February. Together with the current Commissioner, Victor Vandergriff, who’s been an outspoken critic of the agency’s practices and ill-conceived toll projects, Abbott will have a majority…
Feds threaten to take 90,000 acres along Texas-Oklahoma border
‘Come and Take It’ has been the cry of Texans for generations since the battle at Gonzales in 1835 when the Mexican army tried to retrieve its cannon from defiant Texans, and the recent interest by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to take over 90,000 acres of private Texas land along the Red River has stirred the battle cry once again.
TxDOT proposes elevated toll lanes over Interstate Highway 35
When a local San Antonio TV reporter goes on a rant over a toll lane proposal, you know the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has hit a nerve. TxDOT is proposing to add two elevated toll lanes on Interstate 35 each direction from Loop 410 in Bexar County to Schertz in Comal County, approximately 15 miles.
Protecting rural Texans’ water or feeding urban developers’ pet projects?
Have you ever had a kid ask for seconds during a meal before he’s even finished what’s on his plate? Well, that’s what the Texas legislature is asking of voters on November 5. Lawmakers want Texans to pass a constitutional amendment, Proposition 6, to approve more funding for water projects. A similar measure narrowly passed in November 2011 for a $6 billion revolving fund to loan money to local government entities for water infrastructure, outside constitutional debt limitations.
Reagan Democrats, Texas and Globalization
Since Barack Obama won a second term, much has been said about how the GOP needs to reach out to a broader group and be more tolerant in order to win another national election. In Texas, all eyes are on Democrat Senator Wendy Davis to see whether she will formally throw her hat in the ring to run for Texas Governor later this month. She’s energized her party over her high-profile filibuster of a bill to restrict abortion that won her national attention and made her an instant household name in the Lone Star State. Politicos have been pondering whether Texas will turn blue ever since.
Texas legislature kills pro-property rights bills
A slate of pro-property rights bills died in the 83rd regular session of the Texas legislature that ended on Memorial Day. Texas politicians love to tout their property rights credentials at election time, but when lawmakers are in session, they’ve yet to give meaningful protection to landowners in several key areas when it comes time to cast a vote.
Gateway to globalization: Texas toll roads, reinvestment zones and trade corridors
Despite high hopes that lawmakers would address the chronic road funding shortfall at the outset of the 83rd session of the Texas legislature, Texas taxpayers only saw $534 million of $1.2 billion in diversions of gas tax revenues returned to roads (for the next two years) with a reliance on more toll roads to fill the remaining $4 billion annual funding gap. That’s only one-eighth of the money needed.
Texas toll agency breaking the law to stay solvent, seeks sweeping new powers
“This is a clean-up bill,” spouted the North Texas Tollway Authority’s (NTTA) bond counsel, Frank Stevenson II, one of the agency’s ‘legacy contractors,’ Locke Lord, LLP, who crafted House Bill 2247 that grants the authority expansive new powers.
Sequester prompts Texas governor to take over municipal airports
It sounds like something you’d hear on April Fools’ Day, but in Texas, Governor Rick Perry and his highway department are quite serious.
Tea Party Texans say ‘No’ to more tolls, debt and taxes
Texans from across the state recently converged at the capitol in Austin to stress the need for Texas Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, Speaker Joe Straus, and House and Senate budget writers to prevent the most fiscally sound, long-term road funding solutions from being held hostage to more tolls, debt, and tax hikes.
