JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Raising state taxes to improve roads and bridges is one of the few things many Republican and Democratic lawmakers have agreed on in recent years.
Those efforts have slowed this year, even as lawmakers acknowledge a widening gap between needed work and the money to pay for it.
One reason: the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Some states are “waiting to see what direction the federal government is going to be taking,” said Carolyn Kramer, an advocacy director with the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
State lawmakers across the country have proposed fewer than 170 transportation funding bills this year — barely half the amount proposed during the last post-election year of 2019, according