"Tobacco Tax for Transportation" plan moves forward to collect signatures

St. Louis Public Radio is reporting on a new Tobacco Tax for Transportation proposal that seems to be gaining some real momentum:

After months of mulling over the details, an unlikely coalition of convenience stores, gas stations and low-cost cigarette companies has hit the streets to collect signatures for a proposed 23-cent-a-pack hike in Missouri’s tobacco tax – now the nation’s lowest.

Many solutions for MoDOT's current budget funding shortfall are being explored

Under the initiative petition that the group began circulating this week, the estimated $100 million a year that the higher tax would raise would be designated for the state’s transportation needs.

When the coalition announced its general plan last summer, it also was considering a proposal that would simply have added the $100 million to the state’s general revenue.

But after polling, it was “a no-brainer’’ that the proposal linking the tax hike to transportation had stronger support among likely voters, said Ronald J. Leone, executive director of the Missouri Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association.

The money raised by the proposed new tax will be deposited in the new "Transportation Infrastructure Fund" to be used "excusively to fund transportation infrastructure."  Notably, the fund is not restricted for use on roads and bridges, as current fuel tax dollars are.  The new funds could presumably be used for transit infrastructure, railroads, trails, bicycle and pedestrian transportation infrastructure, ports, airports, etc., in addition to roads and bridges.  Whether it could be used for transit or passenger rail expenses such as operating costs or bus/rail car acquisition seems doubtful. 

Exact distribution of funds would, apparently, be left to the discretion of the Missouri General Assembly in their annual budgeting process.

Full text of the proposal is found on the Missouri Secretary of State's website. (See page 2 of the linked PDF file.)

The proposal has some interesting twists--including a proposal that immediately nullifies this tobacco tax if any new state or local tobacco tax levies are introduced.  So it remains to be seen if the tax has any real legs. 

But the fact that a tobacco tax is being serious proposed and supported by the very coalition that strongly opposed previous tobacco tax proposals may mean that the proposal has a chance to move forward.

Image credit: Waiting for MoDOT by Zaskem, FlickR. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0