Issue Position: Roads

Issue Position

Proper maintenance and building of our roads is a core function of government. SC has the 4th largest state highway system in the US. It is obvious that despite the SC Department of Transportation taking up a large portion of the state's budget, we have fallen way behind on keeping up with repairing our roads and bridges.

I have supported many measures that would put more funding into the DOT. However, putting more money into an inefficient system will not solve the problem. It is estimated that it would take $20 billion to get all our roads and bridges up to proper safety standards. This is an enormous amount of money. Money we simply don't have.

In August of 2014, a bipartisan House Legislative committee was assembled to examine the DOT and help it become more streamlined and efficient with your tax money. If we considered raising gasoline taxes or any other taxes, we also had to make sure that inefficiency and waste were eliminated. This committee had an enormously complicated task, but they recommended, among many things, to modify the gasoline tax and partially tie it to market price rather than on a strictly per-gallon basis. If this had been done years ago, we would not have to revisit this tax. It would have been self-adjusting. However, this bill passed the House but has been stalled in the Senate. It will be taken up when the Legislature reconvenes in January 2015. They also recommended an audit of the DOT. This is currently underway.

Over the coming months, I am hopeful that much will change and we can ultimately give our citizens and businesses the great roads they deserve.

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