Wisconsin Road funding

Admittedly our road funding is a mess, and now that we are experiencing unprecedented rainfall the lack of maintenance has really shown up.  There are those who think that the problem stems from not raising the gas tax for many years.  That is certainly one component of the problem.  A bigger source of the problem is when under the Thompson administration we began defunding the schools by allowing vacant land (including farms and forests) to be taxed at a lower rate.  This resulted in a big tax increase to people living in the cities and on rural developed land.  Well those taxes paid for more than schools, they also cover the roads.  Counties and townships now had less money coming in from taxes, less money from federal and state grants so they deferred the maintenance on roads.  The counties and townships could have solved this problem by funding their roads the way cities fund theirs by making each landowner pay half of the cost of the road.  The large landowners didn't think that this was fair and got their way.  Now we have reached the tipping point where the roads are crumbling and the GOP has no idea what to do.  It is clear that a gas tax increase would help but it is not the answer due to more fuel efficient vehicles.  Cutting what people are paid would also help (the GOP likes this idea because they believe that people working for the government shouldn't get paid).  Increasing the cost of car registration and linking it to vehicle weight would also help.  So would a use fee for farmers and loggers who drive heavy unlicensed equipment on the roads.  And I think that we'll need to make all highways toll roads.  That combination is the only way to get the money that we need.