Scott Manley, Senior Vice President of Government Relations for the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), explained to WTAQ’s Jerry Bader on Friday why his organization is opposed to a new tax on heavy trucks in Wisconsin.
The per-mile truck fee would have raised $250 million over the next two years, according to the Associated Press. However, opposition from five Senate Republicans have likely killed the heavy truck tax plan.
Manley explained the the problems with the tax:
“When you’re the second-most manufacturing intensive state in the country, and you’re the number one state for so many agricultural products, between milk and cheese and all of the things we grow, we’re a state that produces things, Jerry. And when you produce things, you have to get them to consumers. And you do that by truck.
“What is being proposed is a 2.85 cent per mile tax for every mile that trucks drive on the road in Wisconsin. Which is going to make it, well, the estimate is $130 million a year more expensive to produce things in Wisconsin.
“We’ve got a thriving paper industry in the Fox River Valley and north central Wisconsin. When they make that paper, they’ve got to put it on a truck and get it to marketplace. Now we’re going to tax every mile that those products travel? It’s obviously going to be much more expensive to make paper in our state.”
You can listen to the whole interview here:
