Texas Democratic Party: Moving Texas Forward

Rick “Tax and Toll” Perry has proposed some rotten pay to play schemes in his 25 years as a career politician, but the Trans-Texas Corridor proposal may be the worst. Although the “tax and toll” funded Trans-Texas Corridor concept has been retired, Texans have already paid $59.4 million for a bad idea, and there may not be an off ramp for Texas taxpayers who will be footing the bill for this massive failure for years to come.

Just yesterday – October 7, 2009 – the Texas Department of Transportation pronounced the Trans-Texas Corridor dead. However, “Tax and Toll” Perry is not giving up on his relentless pursuit of toll roads. Should Perry be re-elected, aides close to him have stated that “he would try to put Texas back on the path to private toll roads.” (Source: Dallas Morning News)

Rick Perry has left Texans stranded in gridlock on our congested roads and highways for far too long. After ten years of his failed transportation policy, Texans find themselves on a road to nowhere:

• Just planning Rick Perry’s 600-mile Trans-Texas Corridor cost Texas taxpayers $59.4 million for a Rick Perry vanity exercise that would have destroyed as many as 500,000 acres of Texas farm and ranch land and created an unprecedented toll tax for Texas. (Source: Houston Chronicle)

• Paying the price of Perry’s failure is business as usual for Texans, and nothing illustrates how Rick Perry is bad business for Texas taxpayers more than the $1 billion accounting error Perry’s hand-picked appointees at the Texas Department of Transportation made as Perry planned to put a toll tax on every Texan. (Source: San Antonio Business Journal)

• Earlier this year, Gov. Perry’s agency heads at the Texas Department of Transportation admitted their plans to spend over $800 million in stimulus dollars – 70% of all the federal tax dollars targeted for Texas transportation funding – on toll road projects, a hypocritical proposal considering Perry’s opposition to the stimulus funds. (Source: Houston Chronicle – via Texas Kaos)

Rick Perry and his toll roads are a raw deal for Texas. A recent editorial said it best:

“Failing to address the problem, as Governor Perry and the Legislature have done, only makes it worse. Every year that passes puts Texas billions of dollars further behind the transportation infrastructure curve.” (Source: San Antonio Express-News)

The Trans-Texas Corridor boondoggle and his failure to create a sensible transportation policy is business as usual under Rick Perry, and another way he has failed Texans.

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To read more about how Rick Perry has failed Texas, visit the TDP’s Top Ten Rick Perry Failures page by clicking here.