Now that a state audit has found the Wisconsin Department of Transportation cost taxpayers billions of dollars through incompetence and waste, members of a strange group of legislative bedfellows insist they know how to fix the addled agency: Throw more money at it.
Immediately after the state Legislative Audit Bureau released its long-awaited review of the Wisconsin DOT, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos issued a press release simultaneously castigating the agency and demanding lawmakers give it more money.
“The legislative audit is yet another independent report that illustrates construction delays are driving up costs unnecessarily, our road conditions are only getting worse and a long-term solution is needed,” the Rochester Republican said. “It’s clear Wisconsin is trying to do too much with too little and taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth.”
Vos again pointed to the Assembly’s “common sense solution” to the DOT’s funding woes, including a “a corresponding increase in transportation revenue in order to begin addressing the long-term solvency of the transportation fund.”
If that means an increase to Wisconsin’s gas tax, already one of the highest in the country, Vos and his “everything-on-the-table” approach to transportation “revenue enhancements” may still be barking up the wrong tree.
Gov. Scott Walker has said he has no interest in gas tax hikes or vehicular fee increases without corresponding budget cuts elsewhere in state government.
Read more at Wisconsin Watchdog
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