Currently the state counts on transportation funding through fuel taxes. Co-Sponsor Sen. Ryan McKenna, D-Jefferson County, is the son of the former Missouri Transportation Commission Chair Bill McKenna. He said as more fuel-efficient cars are made and people buy less gas, it's created a lack of transportation dollars.
Groups representing low-income families say poor people would be hit harder by a higher sales tax. But Sen. Ryan McKenna, a Democrat from Jefferson County, says the repairs are needed to cut down on deadly accidents.
Co-sponsor Sen. Ryan McKenna, D-Jefferson County, said a tax increase is essential for a state with the sixth most bridges in that nation and and a transportation department that maintains more roadways than Illinois and Kansas combined. He said a decrease in fuel consumption and more fuel efficient cars is causing a lack of funding in the state.
“They couldn’t subjectively terminate somebody because they didn’t like that they were Irish or Catholic or, like me, both,” said Sen. Ryan McKenna, D-Jefferson County.
“They couldn’t subjectively terminate somebody because they didn’t like that they were Irish or Catholic or, like me, both,” said Sen. Ryan McKenna, D-Jefferson County.
State Sens. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, and Ryan McKenna, D-Crystal City, are pushing a measure that would impose an additional one-cent sales tax for 10 years, if voters approve it in the November 2014 elections. Revenue from the tax would go specifically to city, county and state transportation projects.
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