Hayride Radio 4-19-19: Scott And Brian Talk Gas Taxes With John Kay Of AFP

It’s Easter weekend, which means lots of our readers are ready to take to the road to be with family and friends to celebrate the holidays. But before those of you in Louisiana can do that, you’ll be driving on some of the worst roads in America thanks to the state’s poor job of building and maintaining its transportation infrastructure. On this edition of Hayride Radio, co-hosts Brian Haldane and Scott McKay tackle an issue related to transportation infrastructure – namely, attempts to raise the state’s gasoline tax, ostensibly to provide for improvements to roads.

Our guest is perhaps the chief opponent of those efforts at the state legislature – John Kay, Louisiana state director for Americans for Prosperity. Kay has fought efforts to raise gas taxes in Louisiana for the last two years and is fighting them this year not because he doesn’t want transportation infrastructure, he says, but because Louisiana’s Department of Transportation and Development is notorious for (1) a lack of transparency in managing its funding, (2) a poor record of using prior funding increases to actually pour concrete and asphalt, and (3) a lack of effort at prioritizing the state’s $34 billion budget to provide infrastructure as opposed to lots of other, perhaps less important, items.

Kay makes the case against the gas tax. He also makes the case for loosening up some of Louisiana’s rigid occupational licensing laws, and therefore providing more economic opportunity to its citizens – though this year AFP is engaged in fighting a bill that would increase the licensing cost to be a contractor in Louisiana’s building trades.

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That’s not all this edition of Hayride Radio contains. Brian and Scott also discuss New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell’s complaint that the media isn’t giving her a fair shake, particularly in light of a questionable junket to Cuba, and they also cover a few key punch-list items that new LSU athletic director Scott Woodward will have on his desk when he takes office next week.

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