Tax dollars spent to support tax hike

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a regional governmental transit authority using tax dollars to support a tax hike it claims it needs to institute a commuter rail operation between Milwaukee to Kenosha and Racine. The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority (RTA) is spending $496,000 of tax money in the attempt to woo support from the public to increase a tax for itself.

Three separate activists groups, Citizens for Responsible Government, Club for Growth Wisconsin and Americans For Prosperity's Wisconsin are fighting this use of public money to lobby the public for support of a tax hike on the already established rental car tax. These groups claim that the three-county government agency is wasting tax money and that the RTA has no legal authority to use the money for lobbying and publicity efforts.

What we actually have here is a government created transit authority looking for something to do. They've latched onto the commuter rail concept for that purpose but now they need to further dip into the taxpayer's pocket to fund it's dream. The current $2 rental tax is insufficient and the RTA wants to boost it another $13.

I question the expenditure breakdown that the RTA made available. 23% for lobbying efforts and the remainder went to research is the claim. From seeing the numbers on other lobbying groups and the amount of research they did, I tend to think the bulk of the money went to lobbying and the small remainder went to producing slick reports based off of previously done research. I also feel safe in saying that much of the research is probably on researching on how to market the tax hike plan to the public and politicians before the lobbying started.

This story does bring up a point that I see periodically in the news. That point is should public transit authorities, whether operational or administrative as the RTA is, be allowed to lobby the public or politicians with taxpayer money. I often see news reports where groups criticize a transit system for lobbying for a tax hike with taxpayer money.

Personally speaking, the transit system needs to get its side out there as to why they need a tax hike or new tax but this can be done through press releases and news conferences. Every city has transportation reporters that can bang the system's drum to get the word out. The expenditure to the system needs to be kept to a bare minimum however. No glossy brochures, no media ads, no gift buying for politicians.

If the transit system's plans are solid, a low cost press release will sell itself. The problem I see is that there are few solid plans out there these days. Most plans today are the visions of a few that want a legacy for themselves on the taxpayer's dime.

While commuter rail may be a good plan in concept, it obviously isn't selling itself on its merits so that makes me lean towards the side believing that the plan isn't really needed. If it was, it would sell without a big fuss. I've seen it happen enough to know it is true: The more you have to market something, the less it really is needed.