Butch Brown calls for 27% hike in gas tax

MDOT Executive Director Butch Brown, who used taxpayer dollars for trips to Puerto Rico, Brussels, Budapest and Vienna, now wants to hike gas taxes by 27% because he says MDOT is running out of money. On one hand, he says MDOT will soon be a maintenance-only department and on the other hand, he says the transportation expansion and improvement plan "Vision 21" is fully funded.

The executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation told a business group Friday that he supports a 5-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax to help fund the state’s road projects.

At the Community Development Foundation’s First Friday event, Larry “Butch” Brown said it’s “absolutely critical” that MDOT find new sources of income.

“If we don’t get new taxes, we’re going to be in trouble,” Brown said.

The primary source of state revenue for the Department of Transportation is an 18.4-cent tax on a gallon gas and diesel.

If MDOT doesn’t find new income, it will be a maintenance-only department in three years, he said.

However, Brown said after Friday’s event that “Vision 21 is already funded.”

Brown explained that MDOT’s originally proposed Vision 21 program – not the version passed by the Legislature – is funded.

“Once we complete the Vision 21 program as it was originally conceived, we will move forward with other projects,” Brown said.

Butch Brown spends money on building new offices around the state and manages a leviathon of bureucracy in Jackson. He spends MDOT money on trips around the world for himself. And in this recession, he wants to raise taxes on us to pay for his over spending.