Hutchison moves to block toll plan (Good act by a Republican)

Source: Houston Chronicle

Sept. 12, 2007, 11:40PM
Hutchison moves to block toll plan
Senate approves provision to delay interstate change

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Texas would be barred from turning existing interstate highways into toll roads by a provision in a major spending bill approved Wednesday by the Senate.

The amendment by Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison would delay for one year a plan by Texas transportation officials to turn to toll roads. State officials have said they need the revenue to help defray an $86 billion shortfall in highway funding for the state.

Hutchison argued that it is unfair to turn highways already paid for by taxpayers into toll roads, and she has pledged to press for a permanent ban.

Her measure, tied to the one-year, $104.6 billion transportation and housing spending bill approved by the Senate, would be in effect only for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

"Today we protected Texas taxpayers from paying twice for a highway," Hutchison said.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5130671.html

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Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

"$86 billion shortfall in highway funding for the state".

It looks like she held off the toll road for one "WHOLE" year.

I hear she is not seeking re-election.


PS: JudyLynn, I am not criticizing your post. I always enjoy your posts, especially the ones about Central and South America. This one just gets my short hairs all riled up.

about her ill treatment of them they've related to journalists somewhere along the road in the last year or so.

Maybe she's running out of people who will work with her, as she' getting a bad reputation for bad behavior at close range.

Never thought the day would come she'd throw in the towel. It seems to give her such a buzz wearing her kazillions of brightly colored suits and dresses to the Senate: a real clothes fanatic. She'll be all dressed up with nowhere to go.

As for the toll road, I've been looking at the Chronicle for a long time, and they've been discussing it for ages, too. Nearly passed out the first time I read about it. Unbelievable. :hi:

Sorry to be so crude, but she is my senator, sad to say. Each and everytime I write to that halfwit, either pen and paper or e-mail, I get nothing but form letter responses. Forget calling, as soon as I say I'm from austin, I might as well give up.

she is not seeking reelection because she is going to run for governor.

I don't think holding off tolls roads is such a great idea however. Just because taxpayers paid for a road once does not mean there are no more expenses. You can't go anywhere in Texas that they aren't repairing and upgrading the roads and bridges. The infrastructure in this country is disintegrating. Don't forgot the bridge that fell down a month or so ago in Minnesota.

Expecting people to pay twice for the same thing just sucks... I assume they are already taxed to supply highway funding? Not the citizens' fault the state government can't live within its budget. Well, maybe it is, since the place is rife with Republicans.

By keeping top marginal tax rates low, and by wasting $500 billion so far in Iraq, we ensure future generations will have to pay off the staggering national debt we are accumulating. Selling off public assets, which is another way to keep this borrow-and-spend train wreck going, is another way to make our descendants pick up the tab.

she's repuke whore to the core

good for the people.

Whore to the core. A very empty core I might add.

I cannot f***ing stand her

then they shouldn't had had them built.

If they don't want out of staters using their roads then don't build roads connecting to other states.


ON EDIT

For those that have toll roads I hope they don't receive federal tax dollars. Since the tolls are suppose to pay for the maintenance of those roads.

There's a catch somewhere. There always is with her. She is known in Dallas as Two Hats Hutchison. One the senator. The other the perfect little V&E wife. Vinson & Elkins. The law firm that brought us Enron and the Andy Fastow partnerships. And probably lots of other partnerships that somehow managed to never be investigated.

She voted against the Democratic amendment that would stop the beginning of the NAFTA "superhighway" and instead voted for Cornyn's amendment. Which would sort of, kind of stop it. To paraphrase Cornyn's summation of his amendment, we mustn't upset Mexico. Even if it means screwing the American people again.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5127184.html

Hutchison for some reason does well with Texas women including Texas Democratic women. Must be a Stepford Wives syndrome or something.

And it needs to end if it takes so much money to maintain. Plus there is no way in hell it would help what it was originally intended for, emergency runways. It was about a bloated project as the thousands of nuclear warheads we manufactured over the past 40+ years.

There is so much trash on these highways that even if they used it for a runway, the intakes would suck it all up and destroy the engine.

a ridiculous one, when you think about it. Did the highways have a parallel military purpose? certainly, the easier movement of material and troops from one place to another. Of course, others can use it for that purpose as well. but the idea that they are designed as runways? please.

I think the economic benefit of highways far exceeds any perceived military benefit.

I would rather have tolls than have my income or sales taxes pay for highway projects. Often, state and local governments have to contribute to get local projects funded.

and raise tolls, puts much more of the economic burden on those that can a: pass it on (like transportation firms) and b: want the convenience of highways. if you need to travel to get to work, lower gasoline taxes and higher tolls encourage you to find alternative methods for that trip, without penalizing you for being poor. If people want to drive alone and pay the tolls alone, more power to them, if they want to carpool, or take the bus, or drive back roads to avoid the tolls, they can do that as well. Gasoline taxes fine urbanites for the transportation needs of suburbanites.