NASHVILLE – Members of Tennessee’s House Republican supermajority quarreled Thursday on issues related to GOP Gov. Bill Haslam’s plan to boost transportation spending with fuel tax increases.
Tempers first flared on the House floor over an unrelated bill allowing Nashville direct future sales tax revenue to pay for a Major League Soccer stadium if Tennessee businessmen win approval for a franchise expansion.
The bill, handled by GOP Caucus Chairman Ryan Williams, of Cookeville, drew harsh questions from Rep. Jerry Sexton, R-Bean Station, an opponent of Haslam’s gas tax.
Efforts by Sexton and like-minded Republicans – who oppose the gas and diesel tax increases – to push an alternative plan to redirect $200 million in existing state sales taxes for road improvements were thwarted at the committee level.
The argument against the Sexton plan was that fuel taxes are in effect a user fee and that general fund revenue from sales taxes, which helps pay for education and other general functions of state government, wasn’t fair to non-drivers, went against decades of practice and was risky to boot.