THE VOTE: Springfield News-Leader's endorsement of Amendment 3 attacked

A Springfield News-Leader reader attacked the paper's endorsement of proposed MO Constitutional Amendment 3, which will earmark a chunk of sale tax money currently going into the general fund for transportation bonds and maintenance:

I was surprised by your misguided endorsement of Amendment 3, which would redirect $160 million to $187 million a year from the state's general revenue fund into a state fund to pay for highway construction bonds. Backed by the road building industry, Amendment 3 would take at least $187 million from what is annually spent on education, mental health and services for children, families, and seniors. It offers no plan to make up for the huge funding gap.

The Kansas City Star, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Columbia Tribune have all come out against this ill-conceived amendment. Didn't the News-Leader do the research to find out only five other states allocate all sales taxes on vehicles to roads? . . .

There is no guarantee that most or even an equal amount of money will be spent on repairing roads rather than building new ones. Hopefully, people in the Ozarks will understand better than you that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that taking money out of a general fund to build roads will lead to devastating cuts in education and social services.

The Missouri Bicycle Federation's position on Amendment 3 can be summed up in three points:

• Missouri's highways are in very bad shape and need to be fixed. Roads in Missouri have been chronically underfunded and fixing this problem will not be painless.
  
  
• Missouri voters should carefully evaluate both the pros and cons of Amendment 3 before voting.
  
  
• Whatever plan is put into place to fix Missouri's roads, years of neglect of the needs of bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit users must end. The legitimate needs of these transportation users be taken into consideration on every new and reconstructed road in Missouri.