Why Give ODOT New Tax/Fee Revenue So They Can Continue to Mismanage?

Oregon Senator Doug Whitsett's latest newsletter lays out the stark realities of the Oregon Department of Transportation's fiscal cliff it is about to fall off of. After reading through it, the only common sense conclusion one can reach is that ODOT's history of mismanaging the taxpayers resources continues unabated.

So it begs the question: why give ODOT more money if they are going to continue to waste or mismanage it?

This is a relevant question as we are seeing nearly every day news stories about the special legislative group meeting to come up with a new transportation package that will likely be the largest tax/fee increase on the citizens in Oregon ever!

Sen Whitsett points out the nearly $7,000 cost per driver to entice Oregon drivers to participate in a pilot program as an example of ODOT's practice of wasting tax dollars. They certainly haven't learned from their spectacular failures like the Eddyville by pass that has nearly tripled in cost, or their (and WSDOT's) 200 million dollar waste for engineering studies for the CRC, which was never built.

It is OCWF's opinion that a large portion of new tax/fee revenue will be used to fill ODOT's current budget hole and much less will actually be spent on desperately needed new road projects or for maintenance than what they will say when they are passing this massive tax/fee increase package in 2017.

Once again the public will be deceived by Salem politicans and ODOT's bureaucrats and our only saving grace to keeping them all in line is to use our constitutional power to let the voters decide the issue with a citizen referendum.