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Yeah, bridges in Missouri are in bad shape, but how do we pay to fix them?

Governor Mike Parson visited Fenton talking about what to do with our crumbling infrastructure.

FENTON, Mo. — Governor Mike Parson was in the St. Louis area on Thursday to talk about the seemingly unending problem of our crumbling bridges.

We've got more than 900 bridges in Missouri that are in "poor" condition. 

The governor has a plan to pay to fix 250 of them, but most of us would like to know what the permanent fix is.

"Yeah I think we're trying to figure out what that permanent solution is you know we just found this out in November and this is a short term fix. The reason we picked bonding on this issue and why the taxpayer should know that is because we are talking about bonding something for 15 years, but the life of these projects is 50 years and above," Parson said.

That short-term fix the Governor is talking about is using money from the state's general fund to pay back more than $350 million in bonds to fix about 250 bridges in Missouri.

According to the 2017 Infrastructure report card Missouri has 3,195 bridges that are "structurally deficient".

That makes us fourth-worst in the country by numbers. 

Maybe not so coincidentally Missouri also has the fourth-lowest gas tax in the country, that's what pays for roads and bridges.

To fix our at times crumbling infrastructure, some have proposed a gas tax that would only fund road and bridge improvements. 

But Missourians have a long history of voting no on these sorts of proposals.

Remember Prop B in 2002?

It would've raised the gas tax by four percent and the sales tax by half a cent. Voters shot that down.

Amendment 7 in 2014? 

Another tax hike that voters said no on.

Finally Prop D last year, another gas tax hike that would've generated more than $400 million for Missouri's roads and bridges.

Shot down again. 

So if we're not raising taxes what do we do? 

"We still have to come up with a comprehensive plan on what to do about our infrastructure, so it's a matter of sitting down with the legislature and coming up with a plan," Parson said.

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