Sen. Cory Gardner backs tax-cut plan to widen I-25

GREELEY — Trimming the tax rate corporations pay on money brought back from abroad could help fund the federal Highway Trust Fund and speed projects such as widening Interstate 25 in Northern Colorado, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner said Monday.

Addressing Transportation Summit 2015, an event at the Island Grove Regional Park event center that was organized by Weld County and co-sponsored by BizWest, Gardner said he is backing the “Invest in Transportation Act of 2015,” introduced by Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. The measure would let U.S. corporations bring back money they have earned or parked offshore at a tax rate of 6.5 percent instead of the current 35 percent, with proceeds going toward the Highway Trust Fund. Corporations would have five years to take advantage of the tax break.

Supporters say the “repatriation” proposal would bring back hundreds of billions of dollars earned offshore that can be invested in the United States to create jobs, and the taxes paid on those earnings could extend the Highway Trust Fund, which also supports millions of jobs nationwide.

A Joint Committee on Taxation analysis of a similar plan presented last year concluded that it would raise money in the first two years but lose money thereafter. But on Monday, Gardner said he was confident the lowered rate would result in increased revenue for the underfunded federal highway program.

“If you’re a company like Woodward in Fort Collins and you do business abroad and earn $1 there but you’re taxed on it when you bring it back and can only bring 65 cents back, you might choose to invest it overseas,” Gardner said. “This would encourage people to bring overseas earnings back, and could generate up to $130 billion for transportation.”

Whatever Congress does, Gardner said, it can’t be a “Band-Aid approach.”

“We’ve seen a Congress that likes to act in jumpstarts and kickstarts instead of long-term solutions,” Gardner said. “All of the private-sector agencies know you don’t plan a $1.2 billion plan with six weeks or six months of certainty. Kicking the can down the road will do no good.”

Noting that expansion of I-25 between Colorado Highways 66 and 14 — east of Longmont and Fort Collins, respectively — would cost about $1.2 billion and that the Veterans Administration hospital in Aurora came in $1.2 billion over budget, Gardner added that “I’m not saying we divert funds from the hospital to I-25. I’m just saying we can do a better job in the federal government of managing the dollars that we have.”

Gardner and other speakers at the summit stressed that easing congestion and updating transportation infrastructure would take state as well as federal money in addition to public-private partnerships — and support from Colorado voters.

A survey released at the summit that was commissioned by the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance and Fix North I-25 and conducted by Louisville-based Magellan Strategies found that 51 percent of likely 2015 voters in Colorado would support a ballot measure to increase state debt by $3.5 billion to fund 30 to 40 transportation projects, 34 percent would oppose the measure and 15 percent were undecided. Senate Bill 272, the “Trans Bond II” measure to approve the question for the November ballot, died in May in a state House committee.

The automated and cellphone survey of 704 likely Colorado voters, conducted April 9-10, also found that nine out of 10 voters view the state’s roads, bridges and infrastructure as in need of repair. However, 45 percent opposed a proposal to raise the state gasoline tax, and 54 percent opposed a plan to increase license and car registration fees by $20.

Gardner stressed the need for expansion as well, pointing out that in the year from July 2013 to July 2014, Greeley’s population expanded by 2.6 percent and Fort Collins’ was up 2.4 percent, making them the eighth and 12th fastest-growing cities in the nation, respectively. He also noted gains in student enrollment at Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado, as well as the increased oil and gas production in Weld County.

“Even with all this growth,” he said, “I-25 north of Longmont looks much like it did when it was built.” To help push expansion plans forward, Gardner asked businesses to “give us examples of traffic congestion.”

Loveland City Councilwoman Joan Shaffer hailed the scheduled July 13 start of the Colorado Department of Transportation’s “Bustang” express-bus service to Denver, but added that “without a dedicated lane for it, it’s going to get caught in traffic and not do much good.”

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