Americans for Prosperity has launched an attack on the quarter-cent tax increase that would provided $18 million a year to improve public transportation in Little Rock. The hang-tag above is being distributed. The tax vote is set for March 1.
You can bet no one associated with AFP rides a bus. They may not even drive themselves.
AFP state director David Ray was not available for comment this afternoon, but Rock Region Metro Director Jarod Varner was. The hang-tag, he noted, “doesn’t mention at all the significant benefits that Pulaski County residents would receive from dedicating funding to public transportation.”
To know how the quarter penny would be spent, go to Rock Region’s Move Central Arkansas, a plan that was more than a year in the making and has been vetted by county leadership. Today, Metroplan’s Regional Planning Advisory Council voted to informally support the tax after a presentation by Varner. Their expression of support will go to the full Metroplan board, which is responsible for transportation planning in Central Arkansas.
The North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, not exactly a hotbed of liberalism, has endorsed the tax. Perhaps the businessmen and women see benefits in providing people a way to get to work and shopping.
AFP, of course, says no to all new taxes, and is tickled pink by Gov. Hutchinson’s plan to spend $750 million over the next decade to improve the highways without raising any taxes. The money, of course, has to come from somewhere: general revenue funds and state surplus dollars.