Gas tax increase would refill fund
Published December 28, 2013
Editorial by Washington Post, reprinted in News and Observer, December 28 2013.
A major federal program is on desperate financial footing. It’s too important and popular to cut drastically. But a combination of changing social patterns, technological innovation and bad policy design has thrown its accounts far out of balance, and it has begun to eat into general spending that should go to other national priorities.
The program is the federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays about half the yearly tab to build and maintain the nation’s roads, bridges and rails. At the moment, the loudest advocate for fixing it responsibly is a liberal Democrat, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Ore. This month Blumenauer proposed two bills meant to refill the fund based on the simple, unassailable principle that those who use the roads should pay for them. The measures are backed by a broad coalition of business and labor groups, and they are sensible. That and $3.69 will buy you a gallon of gasoline.
Traditionally, Congress filled the fund with revenue from the federal gasoline tax. Because the amount of gasoline used generally corresponded with wear and tear of the roads, lawmakers saw a natural fit, and Republicans and Democrats repeatedly raised the tax as needs arose. Until 1993, that is – the last time Congress raised the 18.4 cent-per-gallon tax.
Since then, inflation has cut away about a third of the value of the revenue that the gas tax generates. Americans also are driving more fuel-efficient cars. The combination of congressional inaction and changing consumer habits has depleted the fund, which will be broke in a couple years. Lawmakers will have to address that problem when they reauthorize transportation policy next year.
One of Blumenauer’s bills would raise the tax by a modest 15 cents over the next three years, and then index it to inflation, which Congress should have done in the first place. That would raise about $170 billion over a decade, he reckons. If anything, the hike should be higher. In addition to raising needed transportation revenue, a higher gas tax would combat many negative effects of gasoline consumption, such as greenhouse gas emissions and illness-inducing air pollution.
Still, in the era of the hybrid vehicle, a gas tax will become decreasingly useful. It remains the best existing template to shore up the trust fund. But some frequent drivers don’t buy much gas. So Blumenauer’s second bill would cautiously promote a better but more controversial way to pay for transportation infrastructure: taxes on the number of miles people drive.
A spokesman for the House Transportation Committee told us that lawmakers “will look at all options for addressing our surface transportation infrastructure” in the coming months. Blumenauer has provided two that should top their list.
December 28, 2013 at 11:09 am
Norm Kelly says:
Is raising the gas tax a good or bad thing? Hard to say for sure. The bottom line though is that with more people driving more efficient cars, the road use stats are out of line with what the tax is supposed to cover. And even though it remains a miniscule minority that are driving electric powered vehicles, the plan MUST somehow take their road use into account. Somehow, the people who have been snookered into driving these vehicles need to start paying for the benefits they are also getting. We can not afford to subsidize this group any more than we can afford to continue to subsidize any other group. Fortunately, they remain a very small minority. When electric vehicles are finally ready for prime time, assuming this will eventually happen, there needs to be a plan already in place to charge them appropriately.
However, what this editorialist proposes is in line with the progressive/Demoncrat method of running government these days. Their idea is to use tax policy to affect specific personal behavior. Is this really the purpose of a tax? Should any level of government be in the business of implementing taxes to persuade individuals in their daily lives? Isn't this what communists & fascists call 'central planning'? Hasn't central planner based economies already proven to be tremendous failures? What word is stronger than 'tremendous'? Cuz that is the word that should be in my prior sentence. Central planning is such a marvelous failure EVERY time it's tried that the most descriptive, strongest word possible should be used to describe the type of monumental failure that central planning really is. The problem is that the progressive party in our country, formerly known as the DemocRAT party, believes central planning is the solution to every 'problem' they encounter. Their belief that 'somebody oughta make a law that ...' is ingrained, automatic, all-encompassing. So the natural conclusion for progressives is that there ought to be a law in place to negatively affect our natural inclination to drive. Penalize the populace if they refuse to follow your direction. Force the populace to accept your plan or make it painful enough that we have no choice but to capitulate. Progressives' idea of pain automatically, consistently starts and ends with a new tax or an increased tax. Private business MUST be limited in the amount of profit (or the profit margin) they are ALLOWED by the central planners to make. But if government, at any level, makes more money on a business transaction than the business does, then it's not a problem, and is probably the preferred way for the transaction to happen.
Who makes more money off the sale of a gallon of gas? The oil producers? The gas station? The distributor? Or the government? Remember, it's the central planners that are referring to 'big oil' to turn the populace against them; to encourage the populace to accept federalizing/socializing the oil industry. (some Democrats/central planners have already said that their goal is to take over the oil industry. look it up if you don't believe me.) Then we won't have to worry about how much the gas tax is because ALL of the profit on the sale of a gallon of gas will go to the central planners. Won't that be utopia? Socialists think so. Just ask them.
Is a higher gas tax the answer? Is more control by the central planners appropriate? The tax is up in the air. Central planner control should be stopped immediately, and prevented from becoming more intense. Progressivism is doomed to failure and I don't want my family, my grandkids to suffer because of central planner involvement and failure. This might be selfish, but it's also good for the preservation of the future of our country; the freedom of our country; the greatest force for good & freedom around the world in the history of mankind. Which socialist country can honestly make this claim? I won't wait for any lib to answer that unanswerable question. What part of socialism has helped Haiti, for example?
