Business Should Contribute to Better Infrastructure

The Texas Legislature just finished its 84^th regular session on June 1^st, but before they adjourned, Texas’ elected officials passed a number of bills, not all of which will help Texas.  A week before the session ended, officials passed a tax cut for the business margin tax, which results in an estimated $2.54 billion reduction in tax revenue from businesses.  This bill, House Bill 2, seems to hold many advantages for businesses including reducing the franchise tax from1 percent to 0.75 percent.  The money that will be lost, however, would have gone a long way to help fix a much more pressing problem that is not only a problem in Texas but is a problem for all of the United States.  Transportation infrastructure, roads and bridges, is failing each and every day.  However, the funds to fix the problem don’t exist.  The Texas legislature announced that they had a solution, one that the voters would have to approve, which would dedicate a portion of sales tax on vehicles bought and give more sales-tax revenue to the highway fund.  These constitutional amendments would bring in $2.5 billion; however, there is no proof that the public would be willing to support such amendments. 

Texas’s roads currently have a grade of a D and that will continue to decrease if nothing is done to improve their quality.  Infrastructure plays a major role in everyday life and is something that businesses rely on in order to ship and receive products as well as bring in business.  Businesses can’t operate without good infrastructure; however, not enough is being done to improve the quality of Texas’s infrastructure.  Since businesses are so reliant on infrastructure to operate and make a profit, they should be required to make significant contributions to the highway funds to fix this problem.  While $2.5 billion isn’t nearly enough, whether it is coming from the public or businesses, the combined total of the two groups that depend on infrastructure would help to make some drastic improvements.  The public is more likely to support the amendments if they saw that business was also contributing to solve the problem instead of enjoying their tax cuts.

Rather than placing the responsibility of funding the highway funds on solely one group, while there are others groups who are just as reliant on the roads and bridges, the Texas Legislature needs to take another look at what the tax cuts will accomplish.  Our elected officials need to find a solution that doesn’t just help one group, but rather the state as a whole.  The problems facing the state in coming years, such as the failing infrastructure, do not rest purely on one portion of Texas society or another but rather on everyone.  The recent tax cuts for businesses may help businesses for the moment; however, putting the needed infrastructure fixes off to another day will just cause everyone to pay even more than they would today to fix this problem.