Funding Our Highways
By James Baxter, NMA President
The Bush administration just released another version of their plan to shift responsibility for highway funding to the “users.” This isn’t a bad idea, except that’s exactly the situation that has largely existed for most of the last century and all of the current century.
The users, namely motorists and commercial trucking firms, have paid for the construction and maintenance of our major highways (and not so major highways) through fuel taxes, registration fees and sundry other devices. Even local streets and roads often receive a portion of these fees to add to local taxes that provide access to private property, like our homes and work places.
What the administration really means is that users need to pay MORE fees and taxes and they don’t have the political will to justify increasing traditional funding resources.
They correctly sense that the public feels the existing funds are being wasted and misappropriated for the benefit of someone else, other than the users who paid the fees in the first place.
I know our organization would seriously consider supporting an increase in traditional user fees if we were assured that the money would be used to build and improve highways — versus funding light rail projects, buying laser guns by the gross, or paying for monuments that glorify members of Congress.
However, there is a middle ground between turning our freeways into toll road monopolies and the status quo. That middle ground would require that they federal government reduce and confine its reach to constructing, maintaining, and improving our Interstate highway system. All existing federal gas taxes would be devoted to this one function.
They wouldn’t be used to fund urban mass transit systems, holiday enforcement binges, NHTSA regulations, state and local highways, residential streets, public service announcements for safety programs, trucking regulations, parklands, or recreational trails. This isn’t to say the federal government shouldn’t be involved in many of these functions, but the funding source should not be motorist user fees.
The states and local governments will have to pick up the slack for state and local roads. On the flip side they will have no responsibility for funding the Interstate system and they can contract with the feds to provide maintenance and enforcement functions.
The interests that have seen motorist user fees as a cash cow for trails, busses, trains, property value enhancement and economic development projects will either have to come up with their own user fees or stand in line for a share of General Program Revenue. Seems fair to me, and a lot better than being robbed at the toll booth or whacked with a surcharge because I drove my car into the city.
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European countries don’t have CAFE standards.
The present road use- fuel taxes were doubled in 1990- by Democrats and less than 20 % was used for roads and bridges. The remainder- spent on pork barrel projects- parking garages, bike paths, jogging paths, statues to politicians, general revenue projects that politicians know the public would not approve on their own merit–and then- these large sums sitting in the treasury “have to be spent”!
The CAFE should be immediately raised to no less than the average CAFE of Europen countries( Currently about 35 MPG).
US carmakers don’t have to invent anything!
Come to Michigan and see poor roads and gas tax money wasted. State gas tax money is being used to build fences along freeways to prevent turtles from walking onto the roads. But there’s not enough money to fix the potholes we are told by the politicians.
I admit nothing of the sort , this is all about road upkeep funding . We need to increase road funding now to deal with crumbling ridges all across the US . I believe we must use this fact , the fact that we need more funds now to incorporate an energy policy into how we tax road fuel fuel .
25 years is long enough to go without a real energy policy or dealing with road funding .
Both of these things are tied together a fact we have ignored for the last 25 years and our roads show it .
So you admit that you want to do this not because of an actual cost that must be borne, i.e. paying for roadway development and maintenance, but for arbitrarily punitive reasons – you don’t like low fuel mileage.
That’s a horrible reason for a tax. All it does is make a big pot of money that the government gives out to the people it likes, and takes from the people it doesn’t like.
If you want people to drive more fuel efficient cars, then let the price of the fuel do that. Advocate for taking away subsidies for fuel companies. Keep restricting additional capacity. But don’t ADD another arbitrary tax on it.
Over the road trucks use many times the fuel 4-6 mpg at best so they would more than make up the difference if diesel was given a break compared to gasoline .
With the current set up the most fuel efficient option for light duty transport is penalized hurting our energy security . This is not only about paying for roads but the using of a real opportunity we now have to change course to a more fuel efficient fleet CAFE .
By giving diesel a tax break compared to gasoline Europe and Asia have a fleet wide CAFE of mid 40s to above 50 mpgUS today . European roads are filled today with 50-70 mpgUS diesel cars that make our hybrids look bad jokes .
In Erope and Asia they are above 45 mpgUS CAFE . That is while we in not so bright America sit with real world CAFE of the mid teens at best today . Because of this we are wasting hundreds of thousands of barrels every day for no real reason .
There is no excuse or technical reason for the energy mess we find ourselves in today . This is a mess today of our own making from the lack of an energy policy since the early 80s . We currently have a fleet of vehicles on our roads today that are the worst gas guzzlers in history . If we Remove those useless gas guzzlers and raise the gas tax to a point that they are never affordable again it would be a start towards the right direction .
If we adopted a real energy policy like they have in the rest of the world has had for the last 40 years we could have roads filled overnight with 40-70 mpgUS clean diesel powered cars of all sizes . And if we did this we wouldn’t need a drop of imported oil maybe never again . In fact with just a jump in real CAFE to the high 20s to low 30s mpgUS we could export oil from what we have coming out of our ground today .
And With a more than doable today 40-50 mpgUS CAFE through the use of clean diesel tech we could leave the middle east to Arabs . With a real energy policy we wouldn’t need a drop of their oil for the foreseeable future . No more drilling required other than the 68,000,000 acres in the lower 48 and off shore that is already leased to the oil companies ! And that doesn’t include the 20,000,000 acres still untapped and leased to big oil today in Alaska . All Of which they , big oil have lease to dril in today are only using about 6,000,000 acres today .
TEll BIG OIL to come back to rape the last few acres that are pretected once they have tapped what they already have . Use a raised gasoline tax to help push forward a real energy policy that will make us safer oil security wise .
‘me’, you do realize that the biggest users of diesel, over-the-road trucks, cause many many times more damage to the roads than passenger cars. So why would MPG have anything to do with it, when the things being paid for – road development and maintenance – are more affected by the diesel vehicles.
Your suggestion is just ANOTHER thing that would mask costs, and transfer them from the people that cause them to everyone else.
Dan are you nuts ?????, Do you realize how much every other state subsidizes your roads maintenance & building wise ???
I’m guessing NOT !!!! Wyoming is one of the states , one of many in the west that gets back 5-7-10 & more times what it contributes in federal fuel road tax to the Federal Transportation & highway fund . The national Transportation & highway comes fund from $0.18 gas $0.23 diesel on every gallon sold of on road fuel . This is just that a fund that is supplied money from a national fuel tax to pay for projects that local governments could never afford to pay for locally .
Hey Dan , Only ask for this if you wish to pay $10+ a gal at the pump with state fuel taxes included to pay for YOUR roads . It always amazes me how clue some are that come onto the web and rant about things they have no clue of .
I say raise the gas tax leave the diesel tax be . Gasoline should cost more than diesel as it is used in lower mpg transport that should be discouraged . Give diesel an advantage in price to encourage higher mpg , 50+ mpgUS light duty diesel transport .
I would like to see the federal government get out of highway funding completely. They currently use highway funds to jerk states into passing legislation that the feds want passed but states otherwise wouldn’t pass. Examples of this are Wyoming’s minimum drinking law, and seatbelt laws that are mandated by the feds with the threat of pulling highway funds if we didn’t pass them. Of course our state legislators wouldn’t think of doing the right thing and telling the feds where to go.
Also if funding were solely by the states there wouldn’t be near as much waste. The federal highway fund grants are terrible corrupt and encourage wasteful spending.
I would be in agreement with the things pointed out in this post. However, I think it VERY important to point out that this would be a transparent tax increase. There’s no chance that the amount of money used from general tax collection that currently goes toward roadway and transportation infrastructure would be then returned to citizens. It would just go to other parts of the government, so in essence every dollar they raise through user support of roadways is a direct tax increase to those paying it.
I am entirely for paying for what you use, and inclusion of externalities. And I’m entirely for getting rid of the red herring that anti-auto groups continue to use, that the roadway network is ‘subsidized’ by non-roadway users, at the expense of non-roadway transport. Whether it is or not would go away as an argument. But everyone needs to remember what I said initially: it’s a tax increase.