In a move sure to rattle the cages of the anti-tax crowd, three Milwaukee aldermen are proposing a $20 annual fee to register all vehicles in the City of Milwaukee.

Ald. Bob Bauman, Bob Donovan and Willie Wade want the resulting revenue to be earmarked for transportation projects.

According to the plan, "Revenues collected under this section shall be deposited in an enterprise fund to be called the transportation fund. Revenues in the fund shall be used only to defray city costs for transportation related purposes including but not limited to costs related to the design, construction, operation of streets, alleys, bridges, public way lighting, traffic signs and signals, traffic calming installations, and which may also include special assessments."

A wheel tax has been floated in some form or another nearly every year in the Common Council, usually around budget time.

The Council's Public Works Committee will hear the plan next week.

Age Rage: If a proposal in front of the Common Council goes any further, just being 21 years old might not cut it for people to get into taverns.

A plan by Ald. Jim Bohl, chair of the Licenses Committee, would allow taverns to set their own age limits on patrons. The ordinance allows Class "B" tavern license holders, in the interest of the public good and keeping the general peace, to exercise a predetermined age restriction which must be posted at the establishment.

A Table full of Talk: They couldn't pass the controversial bills separately so why not just throw everything on the table? That seems to be the consensus among state legislative leaders.

Faced with what looks like hours of debate on a budget repair bill and the Great Lakes Compact, Senate Majority leader Russ Decker and Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch are considering merging the two into a single bill.

That doesn't sit well with GOP faithful in the Capitol, however; at least three have sent letters of protest to the leaders.

Combining the bills will force lawmakers to make a difficult choice and perhaps swallow some integrity. For example, a legislator who doesn't like the Great Lakes Compact may still have to vote for it because the budget repair portion of the bill does not raise taxes or raid the transportation fund.

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Posted by local_yokel on June 21, 2008 at 1:37 p.m. (report)

Do I understand correctly that the wheel tax would not be used to support transit!?! I would prefer that it did go towards helping fund transit. I also do not think it was such a great idea to have put an end to the automatic annual gas excise tax increase, which was pegged to the rate of inlfation. I thought that was a good, dependable source of funding for transportation, and such a small amount of money per person. I also think we need legislation to put keep the governor from raiding the transportation budget.

Posted by murphy on May 2, 2008 at 1:24 p.m. (report)

There are so many reasons why a wheel tax is a bad idea. There is no decent public transportation in this City, we already pay a ridiculous fee for night parking permits, it costs more to insure your car in the City of Milwaukee and other taxes are other mechanisms in place to secure transportation funding. I would rather fund transportation projects through property taxes, at least we could deduct that on our income tax. Aldermen of Milwaukee should be trying to get people to move into the City, not scaring them away with more taxes and fees. As a lifelong Milwaukee resident I am starting to question the benefits of living here.

Posted by nfholton on May 2, 2008 at 12:40 p.m. (report)

The wisdom of the wheel tax depends on the state of the current transportation budget. Based on the amount of potholes I've driven over, it seems like they could use additional funds, but I'm not certain. Nonetheless. the tax would be a proper display of having the people that benefit most from roads paying for them. This age limit deal sounds like age discrimination to me. Is this even constitutional?