Inspiration for this morning’s blog post comes from the “Myth vs. Fact on the Gas Tax Increase” posting that we released earlier this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a minute or two and go check it out. It includes some surprising statistics, my “favorite” being that “in the past three years, Maryland has diverted $1 billion from the Transportation Trust Fund to pay for other projects.” Doesn’t sound like a very trustworthy fund if you ask me!

Of course, Governor O’Malley is right when he says that we need more money to spend on infrastructure in this state. That tends to happen when you spend money that was specifically set aside for one thing on something else. If you gave your rent money to your gardener, you would find yourself in the same situation – but would you come to the same conclusion as O’Malley?

A more reasonable course of action would be to first stop plundering the trust fund and then to see if a tax increase is necessary. And even if we come to the conclusion that we wouldn’t have enough money coming in from gas taxes, tolls, and other transportation-related fees, it’s not like raising taxes is the only option available.

For years, the TTF has been one of the go-to funds for extra bailout cash. Have a hole in the budget of some program over here? No worries! Just go grab what you need from the Transportation Trust Fund. It’s okay, as long as you promise to pay it back someday. Just leave an IOU.

Maybe now it’s time to admit that infrastructure should be a priority for our government. In other words: maybe now it’s time to stop taking money from the TTF and giving it to other programs – maybe now it’s time to take money from other programs and give it to the TTF! It’s not like the precedent hasn’t already been set.

No doubt this will cause quite a stir among the proponents of all the various government programs out there. “We need that money!” they’ll protest. “Moving money around in the budget isn’t going to solve the problem! We need more funding!”

And they might be right. Moving money around does not create wealth. If we rob one agency of their budget to pay for roads then we haven’t actually increased overall funding. Unfortunately (and legislators often forget about this), taxes work the same way. When the government increases taxes, that money isn’t just appearing out of nowhere. It’s being taken out of our individual budgets.

O’Malley claims that we need to increase funding for roads, and that doing so would create jobs. He says that it’s the only way. But he ignores one very real possibility. Ask the government (not us) to do more with less by shifting money away from one of the less important parts of the state budget to the TTF. It really does amount to the same thing, but with one more key difference: I’m willing to bet there’s more wiggle room in Maryland’s $32 billion budget than in yours and mine.