Senate Bill 1, passed last year, raised the base excise tax on gasoline by 12 cents per gallon. This initiative would require a majority of voters to approve any increases on the taxes on gas – and it would apply retroactively. 

“This is a message to the millions of forgotten Californians ignored by the Sacramento political elite, help is on the way,” Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox said in a written statement. “Let this also be a message to every special interest in Sacramento, we’re coming for you. You can outspend the people, but you can’t outvote the people, because there are more of us than there are of you.”

Cox worked with other Republican leaders in organizing and providing funds for the repeal effort.

Democrats in the state argue that the higher tax on fuel is needed to fund repairs to crumbling infrastructure in the state, while conservative opponents note that Californians are already highly taxed and that it’s unnecessary spending – like the long-plagued bullet train project – that prevents funds from reaching road repairs.

“The gas and car tax hikes will cost the typical family of four $700 more per year in higher taxes, but the roads will not get fixed because the politicians will continue to divert the funds as they always have in the past,” Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California and a leader of the Gas Tax Repeal campaign, explained in a statement.

For Gov. Jerry Brown, a repeal would be a major blow to his budget and legacy as he departs office, with the outgoing governor offering a blistering critique of the move.

“This flawed and dangerous measure pushed by Trump’s Washington allies jeopardizes the safety of millions of Californians by stopping local communities from fixing their crumbling roads and bridges. Just say no,” Brown said.

For Republicans nationally, having the repeal measure on the ballot is thought to be able to increase turnout and could be key in saving vulnerable congressional seats in the 39th and 49th districts, where longtime GOP representatives Ed Royce and Darrell Issa are retiring.

“Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, filed paperwork last week seeking a 2018 ballot measure to overturn SB1, a 10-year, $52.4 billion transportation funding bill narrowly passed by the Legislature in April,” the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. “The bill, also known as the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, raises the state’s gas tax by 12 cents a gallon, boosts taxes on diesel fuel and imposes new annual fees on vehicles to tackle a road repair backlog exceeding $130 billion.”

Passion and pacing

“Jerry Brown’s decision to push through the largest gas tax increase in California’s history without the approval of voters demonstrated a complete disregard for ordinary Californians,” said Allen, the Los Angeles Times noted. “This ballot initiative will correct Brown’s failure and allow the people of California to decide for themselves if they want to raise their taxes.”

Hoping for an enduring grassroots reaction against the package, the assemblyman turned to disaffected state voters for support. “Allen launched a website asking for contributions of $5 to help him gather the 365,880 signatures from registered voters to place the repeal before voters. Allen can begin to gather signatures once the state attorney general issues a title and summary for his repeal,” according to the Sacramento Bee. “Allen is proposing a diverse stream of possible funding sources, including tribal gambling revenue, to replace the tax.” In addition to Allen, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has considered moving forward with an initiative proposal, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

One potential limitation to Allen’s ambitions would be a relative inability to capitalize on the heat of the political moment. Because of the electoral calendar, the Bee observed, “the earliest the tax could be repealed is after the November 2018 election. Referendums, which allow the law in question to be halted until voters pass judgment on the repeal, cannot be used to repeal tax levies or measures that lawmakers passed with an urgency clause, such as the gas tax increase.”

The long game

Yet a series of retaliatory moves against lawmakers who voted for Brown’s infrastructure bill could keep the issue simmering as Allen forges ahead. “In Fullerton, three Southern California radio talk show hosts kicked off a campaign Thursday to recall state Sen. Josh Newman, a first-term Democratic legislator who barely edged out his Republican opponent in November, in retaliation for his vote,” the Washington Times noted. “The Los Angeles hosts, joined by Carl DeMaio of KOGO-AM in San Diego, drove home the point by launching their recall campaign at an Arco gas station.”

“They were backed by Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who announced the formation Thursday of Californians Against Car and Gas Tax Hikes in order to target Mr. Newman, whose Senate District 29 is based in Brea.”

Even a successful bid to remove Newman could be enough to upset the precarious balance around the tax law. “The loss of one Democratic senator would cost Democrats their two-thirds senate supermajority, making it much easier for Republicans to fight tax hikes,” as the Tribune noted. But it would also damage the legitimacy of the tax deal, which would have faced an even steeper hurdle to passage without Newman’s vote. 

“The California Legislature passed Senate Bill 1 on Thursday night, raising gas taxes and vehicle fees in hopes of generating tens of billions of dollars to fix the state’s roads,” the Desert Sun reported. “The tax increases will take effect November 1 and new vehicle registration fees will begin Jan. 1, 2018. Fees on zero-emission vehicles will take effect July 1, 2020, according to the text of the bill.”

“Gov. Jerry Brown, who stumped for the bill in Riverside this week, said its language had been in the works for years. It squeaked through the Senate and Assembly on Thursday night, barely earning the required two-thirds votes in both houses.”

Getting to yes

To get there, Brown resorted to an uncommon amount of bargaining in close negotiations. “It wasn’t the sort of vote any politician likes to cast. So the measure’s success on Thursday relied on a collection of eleventh-hour sweeteners offered by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders to reach the necessary two-thirds super-majority,” the Sacramento Bee observed. “Now that the dust has settled, it’s clear they doled out nearly $1 billion in district-specific transportation projects, with a popular commuter train system linking the valley and Bay Area headed to new locales. It also appears architects could get legal indemnity in construction lawsuits, and four Riverside County cities could see a budget boost. […] Rumors of other SB 1 vote-getting arrangements lingered in the Capitol this week.”

In risking criticism, Brown signaled a sharp judgment that last week’s deal was the best — perhaps the only — shot at getting a substantial tax-funded infrastructure package passed into law. “Similar proposals have languished for years, but Brown and legislative leaders set a quick-turn April 6 deadline for action, hoping to pressure a compromise before the Legislature’s spring break — ahead of big debates to come in 2017 on the state budget and hundreds of bills,” according to the San Francisco Examiner. “The side deals, which still require legislative approval, showed up in two changes to the budget bill language, with most of it made public at 4 a.m. on the day of the vote.”

Costly neglect

One reason for Brown’s sense of urgency was familiar to residents across the state: California has fallen woefully behind on infrastructure repairs and improvements. “Most of the money, about $33.7 billion, will pay for a backlog of infrastructure repair projects that has grown to $130 billion,” as The Hill reported on the deal. “The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that half the state’s roads are in poor conditions.” And, in a familiar pattern, Sacramento’s choice to proceed with the gas tax fueled speculation that other states in similar straits could quickly follow suit. “As infrastructure maintenance costs pile up, several other states are debating whether to raise gas taxes to deal with local projects,” The Hill added. “Louisiana legislators will debate a proposal to raise gas taxes in a special session beginning next week. The Republican-led Montana state House voted to raise taxes by eight cents per gallon in March, and the state Senate will take up the proposal this month.”

The impending change leaves Republicans on the outs — and residents unhappy with the prospect of even higher taxes on one of life’s staples in California. “If voters don’t like the tax, he says they can start a petition to get a referendum on the ballot, but that would require a lot of money and more than 1 million signatures. But supporters say it’s not worth it, so long as the 10-year, $52 billion measure goes to California’s ruined roads,”,” CBS Sacramento noted. “Either side you’re on, energy analysts say the tax will leave California with the highest fuel tax in the nation.”

Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders continued their push Friday for quick approval of higher vehicle taxes and fees to pay for a 10-year, $52 billion plan to upgrade California’s roads and highways with the release of legislative language for two bills that appear to answer concerns that new revenue might be diverted to the general fund or used for the state’s embattled bullet train project.

Senate Constitutional Amendment 2 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment 12 both say the new revenue generated by Brown’s plan can be used only for transportation and not be borrowed or diverted for any other uses. The measures do not appear to have the weaknesses seen in two previous constitutional amendments meant to guarantee fuel taxes were used only for road improvements.

Proposition 42, passed in 2002, said sales taxes on fuel could not be used for anything but transportation purposes. But it allowed the money to be diverted on a two-thirds vote of both the Assembly and Senate.

After two diversions in subsequent years, voters in 2006 approved Proposition 1A, a constitutional amendment that said future diversions were OK in times of financial crisis, but would be treated as loans that had to be repaid.

In 2010, however, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature orchestrated a scheme to unencumber vehicle fuel sales tax funds that was based on a legal opinion that it was OK to adjust both sales taxes and excise taxes on vehicle fuel without overcoming the normal obstacles to tax hikes if the changes were revenue-neutral.

The scheme sharply cut fuel sales taxes and sharply increased fuel excise taxes, which were not subject to Proposition 1A protections. This allowed $1.8 billion in fuel excise taxes to be used to pay off previous transportation bonds instead of using general fund dollars.

SCA 2 and ACA 12 would forbid the use of new revenue for such bonds approved on or before Nov. 8, 2016. This provision would also prevent funds from being directed to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s $64 billion project, original approved in 2008.

Zero-emission vehicles would face first fees

Here are the key details of Brown’s proposal, which targets an estimated $137 billion maintenance backlog on local and state roads and highways:

• It would raise gasoline excise taxes by 12 cents per gallon, a 43 percent increase, and index them to inflation.
• It would raise the diesel sales tax from 5.75 percent to 9.75 percent and increase the diesel excise tax from 16 cents to 36 cents per gallon.
• It would impose a first-ever road-use fee of $100 a year on owners of zero-emission vehicles who don’t buy gasoline and thus help pay for road and highway improvements.
• It would add a new annual fee on vehicles based on their value, with owners of vehicles worth less than $5,000 paying $25 ranging up to owners of vehicles worth $60,000 or more paying $175.

To become law, the two bills need two-thirds support from both the Assembly and Senate, meaning Brown, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon either need some Republican votes or no Democratic defections. They hope to have finals votes taken by Friday, April 6.

Republicans rip plan — and some Democrats may as well

That looks to be a tall task. Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley appeared to speak for most or all GOP lawmakers when he ripped Brown’s plan, telling reporters, “The state government has mismanaged our transportation system now for decades and the only answer, the only response to that, is that the Democrats — the ruling party here in California — want to raise taxes.”

Meanwhile, in an era in which California Democrats’ hostility to fossil-fuel vehicles keeps building, the new fee on zero-emission vehicles and the divvying up of the $52 billion in new revenue is likely to rankle some. The package’s overwhelming focus is on road and highway improvements; $7 billion would go to mass transit and local public transit systems and $1 billion to new bicycle lands and pedestrian projects.

What happened in San Diego County in the Nov. 8 election could be telling. Measure A, an $18 billion program which would have used sales taxes to fund transportation improvements, was crafted by the San Diego Association of Governments with an eye toward winning over environmentalists. Transit and bicycling projects and improvements were to get $8.94 billion of funding, just under half.

But Measure A got 58 percent of the vote, less than the two-thirds needed, after being scorned by some liberals for spending too much on roads and by some conservatives for spending too much on transit.

That suggests some green California Democrats may not be happy with transit and bicycling only getting a 15 percent cut of Brown’s $52 billion package.

Sharing in a new emerging consensus in favor of substantial infrastructure spending, California Democrats have teed up the policy for early action in 2017, triggering renewed debate over the wisdom of funding the effort through significant new transportation-related fees and taxes.

Gov. Jerry Brown and other leading Democrats had signaled earlier in the month that infrastructure would be a priority in the new year. “It’s also expected to be one of [Donald] Trump’s first policy proposals,” Capital Public Radio noted — a rare area of overlap between Sacramento’s agenda and what soon will likely be Washington’s. While Trump has floated the outsized prospect of spending at the trillion-dollar level, some lobbyists pushing California Democrats for a robust package of their own are claiming “the state has tens of billions of dollars worth of backlogged projects, from congested bottlenecks to crumbling bridges,” according to the station. 

“Senate Bill 1 by state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, calls for a phased-in 12-cent tax increase on gasoline, increased vehicle-registration fees as well as an annual $100 road maintenance fee for zero-emission cars,” Courthouse News reported. “The proposal would raise California’s gas tax for the first time since 1994, and reallocate $500 million in heavy-vehicle fees to road maintenance instead of paying down existing transportation bond debt.” 

“Democrats say raising the gas tax is the best way to make up tax revenues lost by Californians buying electric vehicles. The state’s fuel levy is currently 27 cents per gallon. With California facing an estimated $59 billion highway-maintenance shortfall over the next decade, Beall says the tax and vehicle registration fee hikes will fix the state’s roads and come with the added benefit of new jobs.”

From old to new

State Senate Democrats rolled out a total of five bills, some of which took advantage of the vogue for infrastructure spending to recast more traditional parts of their longstanding policy agenda. One bill, for instance, would offer “$1.2 billion to state programs that incentivize freight and trucking companies for reducing emissions,” Courthouse News added. 

Another bill with an environmental cast focused on water and recreation. The legislation “would fund state and local parks and water infrastructure through a $3 billion general obligation bond,” according to Reuters. “Despite recent rains, California is in the fifth year of drought. In 2014, state voters passed a $7.5 billion bond to fund water infrastructure projects throughout California.” Another bill would issue another $3 billion bond for increased housing. One affordable housing bill imposes a $75 real estate documentation fee. State Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, cited “a high unmet demand for new water and natural resource investment,” the wire noted.

Bond battles

Advocates for private infrastructure financing have warned against tackling the state’s infrastructure challenges through recourse to big-ticket bond measures. “Governments and taxpayers could get far more value from private investors willing and able to finance total costs than they do from simple bonds with little accountability,” California Policy Center vice president of policy research Ed Ring observed in a recent Sacramento Bee op-ed. “The recent auction of the Indiana Toll Road to a consortium of pension funds (including CalPERS) for $5.7 billion demonstrates the value of high-quality infrastructure to institutional investors.”

“The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the state a dismal C- grade,” Ring noted. “The state’s water infrastructure has not been expanded since the 1970s and is designed for about half the current population. California’s transportation network is crumbling and congested, and its electrical grid is increasingly focused on renewable energy without a clear plan for storage and distribution.”

In the lead up to November’s elections, Gov. Brown pushed to defeat Prop. 53, an initiative designed to block bond measures that didn’t pass popular muster. “Proposition 53 would have required state revenue bonds, borrowing that’s generally paid back by users of a large public works project, of $2 billion or larger to be approved by voters statewide,” the Los Angeles Times recalled. “Revenue bonds could be an integral part of the future $17-billion effort to build twin underground water tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region. They could also be required to complete the controversial high-speed rail project from San Francisco to Los Angeles.”

Overtime for farmworkers bill nearing vote

Good morning! It’s almost Friday and almost the end of session, with legislators hard at work. 

After a staged, 24-hour hunger strike, proponents of a bill to increase overtime pay for farmworkers announced on Wednesday the once-dead measure will be on the Senate floor next week. 

The hunger strike was designed link the legislators’ sacrifice of food with the farmworkers’ sacrifice of some overtime pay while plucking the food, bringing attention to the issue in the process.

As the eight or so hunger strikers broke their fast, the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez tweeted — after handing out bread — that Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon reportedly agreed to call the bill to the floor on Monday (a de Leon spokesman could not immediately confirm the timing). 

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• When the mayor of South El Monte resigned last week after admitting to taking bribes for seven years, it highlighted the wave of local corruption that’s plagued cities in Los Angeles County over the past few years. CalWatchdog has more. 
• “Two Democratic lawmakers unveiled a $7.4-billion transportation plan late Wednesday, the latest effort to break through a yearlong logjam over the state’s funding woes,” which includes a 17-cent-per-gallon hike in the gas tax. The Los Angeles Times has more.  
• “A vehicle trade-in program for low-income families and projects in poor communities would be among the chief recipients of money from California’s cap-and-trade program under a Senate proposal unveiled on Wednesday amid an attempt to win enough votes to extend the climate program,” writes The Sacramento Bee. 
• A roundup of legislative action from the Senate yesterday includes a bill requiring bartenders and servers to take a responsible beverage servers course. Capital Public Radio has more. 
• “Nearly three-quarters of California’s previously uninsured adults have gained health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act — and most of them, like last year, say their health care needs are being met,” writes The San Jose Mercury News. 

Assembly:

• In at 10 a.m. Two hearings.

Senate:

• In at 10 a.m. One hearing on gambling legislation. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @davidsiders

As state drivers’ changing habits undermined roughly a hundred years of gasoline taxes, California officials debuted a controversial new pilot program designed to make up the difference.

“The state of California is looking for 5,000 volunteers this summer for an experiment with potentially major pocketbook ramifications,” the Sacramento Bee noted. The so-called California Road Charge pilot program, proposed by the state Legislature, has tasked “Caltrans and other transportation officials to set up a nine-month test to see what it would be like if drivers paid for state road repairs based on how many miles they drive in their cars or trucks rather than how many gallons they buy at the pump.”

Aiming for a July start and a nine-month run, the program “already has a list of 4,300 people who are game,” according to Next City. “Participants will continue to pay the pump tax, but receive simulated monthly statements detailing how much they would pay under a road usage system.”

Losing gas

With gas prices, gas taxes and gasoline usage all sinking, lawmakers have labored to settle on a different way to collect revenue from road usage. “In California, drivers now pay 30 cents per gallon, plus 18 cents a gallon in federal tax,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“Not only are politicians averse to raising the tax — which hasn’t been bumped up since 1994, with polls showing extreme distaste from voters — but also the continuing rise in fuel efficiency and the boom in electric vehicles ensure the steady evaporation of revenues even as more cars roll up more miles on the road. Gas taxes are expected to bring in $4.5 billion this fiscal year, 16 percent less than last year and 21 percent less than in 2014. Projections call for revenues to drop another 6.5 percent in the coming year.”

Just last month, regulators signaled the shifts to come by throwing their weight behind a further drop in the gas tax. “California drivers will pay 2.2 cents less per gallon of gasoline, starting in July, after a divided Board of Equalization voted to cut the excise tax,” according to U-T San Diego.

“‘Lowering the rate is the right thing to do and I’m sure Californians will welcome this reduction,’ board vice chair George Runner said in a statement after the agency voted 3-2 to pass the reduction that was recommended by BOE staff.”

Making the transition

From a regulatory standpoint, moving toward a per-mile tax would offer an additional advantage — a relatively smooth and seamless transition from a logistical and bureaucratic standpoint. Of the four vendors recruited to track mileage in the new pilot program, three “are already providing bonus services to fleet managers based on vehicle data,” according to Techwire.net.

“Azuga currently offers fleets a device they plug straight into a vehicle’s OBDII computer — a standard component in all vehicles made after 1996. Aside from automatically reporting mileage back to fleet managers, the computer is what alerts drivers to specific problems in the engine and can also offer information about what’s going on under the hood,” the site noted. “Two of the other companies signed up to track the mileage of participants in California’s test program, Intelligent Mechatronic Systems and EROAD, offer similar services. The fourth vendor, Arvato Mobility Solutions, will manage the accounts.”

Although privacy advocates have expressed skittishness and dismay, many Californians have grown accustomed to their driving habits being monitored electronically. California Road Charge will offer “the option to allow the state to monitor their in-vehicle computer, tracking where they go so they aren’t charged for the use of private or out-of-state roads,” Next City noted. “Recognizing that many will see this as an intrusion on their privacy, the state is testing other ways to collect this data, like periodic odometer reading verifications. California will also experiment with offering drivers weekly or monthly “all-you-can-drive” passes.”

A report issued by the California Center for Jobs & the Economy, sponsored by the California Business Roundtable, using numbers from the census and the American Community Survey, indicates that despite efforts to change attitudes about transportation the old stereotype holds true – Californians love their cars.

“The substantial investments in public transit, bike lanes and other alternative modes have not produced major gains in commuter use,” the report stated.

“Combined, public transit, carpooling and ‘other’ modes dropped from 30.3 percent of total commuters in 1980 to 21.5 percent in 2013 and to 21.1 percent in 2014. In total numbers, use of these three modes increased only 430,000 workers by 2014, while use of single occupant vehicles increased by 5.5 million workers.”

More cars on the road means those roads take a beating, which has led Gov. Jerry Brown to call a special session to deal with funding to fix the roads. While Brown wants tax increases to fix the roads, Republicans in the Legislature are seeking to make sure that money collected for transportation purposes is spent on the roads and not siphoned off for other purposes.

Yesterday, Assemblyman Mathew Harper, R-Huntington Beach, introduced a bill that would give the voters a say in whether gas taxes are increased for the roads. Harking back to the governor’s pledge, made when he began his third term, to seek a vote of the people before taxes are raised, Harper said in a release, “I am proposing we do exactly the same thing here. Letting the people decide what they think about new taxes before we force new taxes upon them is not a revolutionary idea.”

It’s an interesting gambit, moving the tax decision away from the legislators but perhaps breathing life into the gas tax choice given that Republicans seem determined not to give a gas tax measure the necessary votes it needs to pass. When Gov. Brown wanted to put a tax on the ballot for voters to decide soon after he took office in 2011, Republicans would not go along. Are Republicans willing to let voters decide this time? However, a gas tax increase never scores well in polling.

While the issue of funding roads dominates the transportation discussion, the Center’s report argued that the increase in auto travel is tied to another major policy issue in California — the cost of housing.

“The continued growth of single occupant vehicles is fully consistent with the all-too familiar need in California to broaden the geographic search region in order to find housing commensurate with workers’ incomes,” the study stated. “In California, the growing body of land use, energy, CEQA and other regulations affecting housing cost and supply has put both the cost of housing ownership and rents within traditional employment centers out of the reach of many households.”

The solution offered in the report: “Regulatory reform to make housing in the urban centers more affordable for a broader swath of California’s workers.”

While officials try to figure a way to deal with increased volume on the roads, new technology may add to the burden.

Driverless cars might increase the ride-alone phenomenon. If some of the public transit users enjoy the ability to relax or read as they commute, driverless cars would give the same opportunity with the convenience of door-to-door service.

In the meanwhile, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration went ahead with huge cuts to the infrastructure budget. According to the Los Angeles Times, “state transportation officials have announced plans to cut funding for road and transit projects by $754 million over the next five years, the greatest reduction in two decades.” The drop, cutting more than a third into last year’s sum, cleared the California Transportation Commission as Brown “used his State of the State address to call on the Legislature to end the gridlock in negotiations over new taxes and fees for transportation projects,” the Times noted.

While gas taxes raked in 18 cents on the gallon in the recent past, the Times added, last year receipts plunged to 12 cents a gallon — with analysts predicting another drop this summer to just 10 cents:

“Each penny reduction in the gas tax decreases funding for state transportation projects by some $140 million a year. Because of the funding cut, the state for the first time in a decade was asking counties to terminate some of the 200-plus projects previously offered funding, according to Susan Bransen, chief deputy director for the commission.”

Skittish Dems

Election-year politics, however, have cast serious doubt on prospects for a new deal that would somehow replace the disappearing outlays. “In fact,” the Sacramento Bee noted, relative to last year, “the timing appears less favorable. Enacting a tax increase would require the support of at least some legislative Republicans, always difficult but likely more so amid the rancor of an election year. Nor is it clear that every Democrat in the Legislature will vote for a tax.” Since breaking the Democrats’ supermajority in Sacramento, Republicans have gained the ability to block legislative tax increases. “Although Democrats control both houses of the Legislature, Republican votes are needed to enact any tax measures, giving them leverage on the issue. If all Democrats were supportive” of an infrastructure hike, “a deal would need two Republican votes in the Assembly and one in the Senate,” according to the Associated Press.

While some Democrats fear they’ll be thrown out in a populist election season if they make the wrong move on taxes, Republicans have reiterated their concern that largesse elsewhere in the budget has put Californians in an untenable situation when it comes to government’s basic roads-and-repairs function. State Sen. Bob Huff, R-San Dimas, said Brown “did nothing except create an extraordinary session where he says you’ve got to raise taxes” last year, as the AP reported. “Here we are again with another $10-plus billion of revenue and once again, it’s ‘We need to bite the bullet and raise taxes to cover this,'” Huff said.