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2 US Senators Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax Increase
An anonymous reader writes There are several proposals on the table to stave off the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund (which pays for transit, biking, and walking projects too) in two months. Just now, two senators teamed up to announce one that might actually have a chance. Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) have proposed increasing the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon over two years. The federal gas tax currently stands at 18.4 cents a gallon, where it has been set since 1993, when gas cost $1.16 a gallon.
Sure.
Good!
a. Gas is much too cheap in the US.
b. We need a lot of infrastructure work.
Of course, I'm sure we could afford to pave all of our roads with gold, have diamond-studded bike lanes, and solid titanium sidewalks if we didn't spend half our budget on wars, but hey, I'm not holding my breath. There's not as much room for corruption in building roads in this country as there is building roads in some 3rd world country that we bombed into oblivion.
I don't respond to AC's.
When it comes to raising money, they can both get on the same train.....
Anyhow, an 18 cent change all at once is never gonna happen. They'll have enough rending of garments and gnashing of teeth if they try to raise it nickel.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
More revenue to buy things to use against the population.
Just what we need...
12 cents per gal? ours is 128cents per gal!
Since we subsidize the energy sector with tax payer dollars already to the tune of $2.4B per year, why don't we simply reduce the subsidy to pay for new infrastructure?
Too easy?
12 cents won't affect me one bit. It certainly won't change my driving habits. The poor on the other hand.. well, let's just say if you're living on a fixed income and/or are already below the poverty line a nice big regressive tax might sting a little...
Defund the NSA, we'll have all the money we need for roads and infrastructure. And then some.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
So did shares in Tesla go up on this news? Expected increases in Prius sales?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Roll it back 18 cents and get it from the defense budget!
The government is a poor steward of money. The Highway Trust Fund is one of the biggest pork sources (bridge to nowhere, museums, etc). Cut the shit and focus on, you know, roads and bridges first.
If you gave your kid $100 to buy groceries and he spent it on meth would you give him another $100 so would buy groceries (this time for real!). I mean, sure, maybe if it was good meth. But it's not even good meth!
The Federal government should not be paying for any roadways not directly involved in interstate commerce. Let the states and communities pay for local roads, paths and transit. I am not saying more money does not need to be raised to cover expenses, but is not to be done at the Federal level.
If the gas tax was tacked on as a percentage of fuel cost this would never have become an issue. If it was 18.4c when gas was $1.16 per gallon that's ~15.86%; if it would have been a percentage it would amount to 63.45c now and noone would need to take up any legislation!
Now, can we have term limits for Congress? Please?
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
The issue with the gas tax is that it is a fixed amount per gallon and the real value falls over time with inflation. The only way for the gas tax to keep up is to index it to inflation. Otherwise you will continue to see the Highway funds periodically getting depleted until you have to pump up the tax again. Much better to permanently index the tax to inflation rather than have these periodic increases. Of course you could argue that there are better ways to tax in order to raise transportation infrastructure funds. But if you are going to stick with the gas tax, then index it.
The government only pulled in $1,934,919,000,000 this year so there's obviously not enough to go around.
a. Gas isn't too cheap in the US. If anything, it looks like commodities investors alone drive the price independent of supply/demand.
b. The cost should go on registration. As we keep getting cars that are more and more efficient (and even run on electricity), we'll charging road users very unevenly. If this was an emissions tax that might be okay, but I think it isn't (?).
... dropping the transit, walking, and such goo out of the federal outlays, and leave it to relevant localities.
A better solution, used by some states, is to tax milage, determined at annual re-registrations. That brings in a share from the electrics and hybrids.
The amount of money we spend on roads is so insignificant compared to the rest of the federal budget that it can be paid for with the income the government doesn't even bother to classify.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWximmaAuWw
Raise taxes, let's not start dismantling our massive military or surveillance apparatuses or anything. We might need those military bases in almost 200 countries you know.
The EU has more public transportation with there higher taxes on gas.
They should change the tax to a percentage of the sale price, or at least enact a yearly COLA adjustment so that the tax will adjust for inflation.
Since the gas tax is ostensibly for the construction and maintenance of roads and highways, it should be compared to that. The cost of maintenance and construction scale mostly according to CPI, not the price of gas. I can't think of any reason why you'd compare the tax to the price of gas unless you're deliberately trying to mislead people into thinking it needs to go up more (political arguments about energy taxes aside).
Putting $1.16 into an inflation calculator yields $1.90 in 2014 dollars, or a 64% increase. 64% of 18.4 cents is 11.7 cents. So a 12 cent increase is exactly what's needed for the tax to keep pace with inflation.
Seriously, trucks and busses do 100x - 10,000x more damage to the roads and bridges that this tax is being used to repair. Those vehicles should be the ones taxed more to repair the problems they are typically causing.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Why dick around with raising it or not raising it?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
How about we stop subsidizing the oil companies with our tax money and divert the money saved to this project. A much more direct approach instead of this roundabout method.
Bike registration and insurance requirements. For bike riders over 21 only.
No sir I dont like it.
I haven't put gas in my plugin hybrid since March. I'm down to a half-tank.
I live in Michigan - where the GOP dominated state government has turned our roads to gravel - except with bigger chunks. I'd really like to see better roads, and I certainly understand that my lack of gasoline purchases means that I'm being subsidized. Fuel taxes are a great proxy for road usage fees, and so long as there aren't a noticable number of plugin electric vehicles this will probably continue to work - so I won't worry about it. The politics of doing anything with The Party of No is just too difficult for little things like fairness or common sense to have any hope of success.
I have a hybrid drive / bus commute that is Monday through Friday, 52 weeks per year. I go through about 20 gallons per month. If this went through, it would be an extra 3.60 cents per month / 43.20 per year.
But, this is with my new (hand me down) car. If this was two months ago and I was driving my K5 blazer the same distance, my cost would be about 8.60 per month / 103 per year.
Currently, I drive about 7 miles and bus about 20 miles (one way), which is less driving than the national average of 16 miles one way.
What's my point? Well, this type of tax will absolutely hurt those that cannot afford a newer car with better MPG OR the time it takes to use mass transit. If I had to drive my old car (Again, K5 blazer) on the typical american commute by distance, just this tax alone would cost over 15.00 per month...which is money that wouldn't be spent elsewhere since the lower income brackets tend not to save but to spend.
If you want to really progressively tax consumption, for hybrids and diesels to make up for lost gas tax revenue.
Why not five dollars? That would raise enough money to pay for all kinds of infrastructure improvements. Listening to these guys talk it is clear that our roads are crumbling, our bridges are falling down, and don't forget TERROR!
$5/gallon is perfectly reasonable - gas would still cost less than it does in most of the rest of the world.
1993 average gas price: $1.16.
Since the current national average gas price is $3.675, an increase of $2.515, it would seem only fair that instead of a gas tax increase, they should propose a tax credit of $2.331/gallon ($2.515, less the 1993 tax rate of $0.184).
Just sayin...
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
Prius b*tch. I go to the gas station for fun.
I'm usually against higher taxes, but our national infrastructure is crumbling. It has to be paid for in some manner and there's not enough money in the fund.
Enact a law that says that every time a Senator or Congressman or anyone proposes a Tax INCREASE, that they must then go to knife. Going to the knife will mean that unless they can prove that the program for which they are going to raise taxes has 0 waste, and no opportunity for efficiency gains they automatically lose 1/2 of the proposed tax. IE instead of a 12 cent tax increase, they would trigger a 6 cent tax decrease and this "supposed" broke fund would then have to tighten its belt like everyone else and come up with 18cents in tax equivalent efficiency gains. Thus unless an orginization had tighted all the belts and made all reasonable concessions to efficiency they would not DARE ask for a tax increase.
BTW I define tax as theft of money from a working individual to provide to the monolithic State which then uses that money to serve some and oppress others. No taxes are good. All projects should be done as follows.
Problem: A new highway is needed between City A and City B
Proposal: This new highway will be 20 miles long and have five lanes within 5 miles of city A and 5 miles of city B and 2 lanes for the 10 mile stretch inbetween
Benifits: List the Benifits
Proposal Number: (X123884)
Option 1: Asphalt
Option 2: Concrete
Option 3: new material
Cost of option 1
Cost of option 2
Cost of option 3
Bonuses for early completion 2 million
Then have companies bid on the project, when it is approved it goes to the public for a vote and cost per citizen is in state is determined:
Cost per Citizen: 80 dollars
Each citizen then votes for approval of project or disapproval: If approved no taxes are levied instead a remittance note goes up
Each citizen who contributes 80 dollars gets free use of the road. Everyone who votes against or doesn't approve must pay per use (tracked by computerRFID tag called a national infrastructure tag) if you pay the remittance note you are considered to have paid your 80 dollars for use of this section of road, all other roads would be taxed at .01 or less cents per 100 miles driven or something very very low so roads that are used more get more income and can be fixed more often.
If you drive on the road you are taxed .01 cent per mile (or the minimal rate based on the damage your vehicle does to the road)
Tax per use bill is tallied and deducted from your paycheck.
All financials must be posted to the project including paychecks of workers, down to the nails used in the signs for road construction, so everyone can see. If overages are required the company must pay overages or be disallowed from bidding on public projects for 5 years.
Anyone can submit a project to be voted on, only top 5% of upvoted projects will be put to ballet (IE if enough signatures are garnered)
Votes for projects are done quaterly like the business cycle.
Everything including war is project,
Need for government highly diminished , most everything except top secret national defense conducted in open
no "taxes" except for usage , and these so low that if you don't pay them you won't be arrested just will carry the tax bill, all peoples tax bills can be posted online and charitiable orgs can hlep pay them for those who are poor or unable to pay or jobless..
Would have a national account that could be used for projects that takes donations (kickstarter) so if a project is funded and requires voter approval it can be submitted to voters as an already funded project (IE bikelane across the USA with 0 automotive intersections (IE bridges or tunnels under all highways, no grade greater than 1% and water and food stations every 20 miles, all land usage rights procurred and rights of way ready to go, just need voter approval), bamn submitted and done
Just a thought, hate it or hate it badly, a thought just the same and with this community it could be vastly improved.
Seriously gas is expensive enough, taxes are high enough and all this does is cause inflation, which is a backdoor tax.
Cars are going more miles per gallon than ever, thus reducing the amount of gas purchased. They should take this into account as well.
Well over 25% of gas tax funds go to side walks and bike trails and shit like that. How about we start with this.
Be honest. You just made up this number, didn't you?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
A higher gasoline tax beats the proposed alternative, monitoring all cars for distance driven.
If they take that damn ethanol out of my gas.
MPG and food savings would easily make up for it.
More regressive taxes! Maybe we can cut out the middle man and just enslave the working poor to rebuild our infrastructure.
Americans like to drive bigger cars than they need, and burn a lot of gas, and blow smoke and fumes. But they don't want to pay for it.
The methodology used to define Urban Areas (which includes Urbanized Areas and Urban Clusters) are somewhat misleading. I am told that I live in an "Urban Cluster" even though my nearest neighbor is half a mile away; I consider it a very rural area -- centered on a town of about 3,000 people, with one stoplight, surrounded by homesteads, farmland, and dense forest.
Remember that population distributions are quite non-uniform. Remember too that the remaining ~20% of the US population of 313M still amounts to over 60,000,000 people who aren't in an "Urban Area" and for whom public transportation will likely never be an option. Those "leftovers" number more than the population of just about any country in Europe, save Germany.
Yes, our public transit completely bites compared to Europe, even in Urban Areas; I've lived and worked extensively overseas. I'd enjoy good, cheap public transportation here -- sadly, my area actually had urban electric rail all the to the city at one time, but the company folded in the 1920s -- but don't see it ever happening with the large distances involved and the investments in highways.
I don't much like to drive here in the US, simply because other people drive insanely, but that's the price of avoiding city life. Yuck
Unfortunately, you can be the most careful, conscientious driver in the world and still end up mauled or dead, because of the other idiots on the road. It used to be you'd see someone blow through a stop sign once in a blue moon and think, "Wow, what an idiot!" Now I see it daily, often several times a day. Distracted drivers, with no respect for anything or anyone else.
IIRC, I calculated once that a carbon tax raising the same revenue as the gas tax would result in a 5c/gallon gas tax. (And taxes on other things.) So raising the desired amount of revenue with a carbon tax would still lower the gas tax to about 9c/gallon.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Don't just update the existing crumbling infrastructure, build better infrastructure!
If you're going to raise the Federal Gas tax by $0.10, you might as well use it to build Hyperloop infrastructure that individuals could ride for free:
https://github.com/OpenHyperlo...
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
I've always wanted a unicorn. We'd play together, and I'd get to ride it. It would have much better gas mileage than a car, and because unicorns only poop rainbows, it would be much better for the environment.
My proposal has about the same chance of passing the Republican-led House as theirs does. This is an election year, and no Republican (and few Democrats, for that matter) is going to vote for a tax-raising bill in an election year. (Note: all years are election years now.)
(Besides, this is a revenue bill; they have to start in the House anyway. What gives?)
that's like 30-40 per gallon
lose != loose
Why is it the only time Ds and Rs can agree on something is when they're reaching their grubby little hands into my wallet?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
when I registered my vehicle.
Well, I hope you do have fun at the gas station. I drive electric, so I never go there, period.
gas taxes have a disproportionate effect on the rural and low-income. If you want to tax gas, tax the high-octane blend that the rich put in their high-perormance cars, and leave 'regular' alone.
Or, they could stop pocketing our money and actually fix the damn roads and transportation system in this country. Just a thought.
The US population is much more spread out. Our land area is over twice the size of the entire EU but we have only about 63% as much people. What works there doesn't necessarily work here.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
No extra cost to warming, it benefits agriculture and humans do well in warmth, much better than cold.
Sea level is rising as we warm up from the little ice age, and much land is subsiding. So, the link to alleged warming (temps have not risen for the past 13-17 years depending on which temperature series you look at- at a time when 25% of all anthropogenic CO2 has been emitted) is very weak.
Pollution from cars--hmm, not much lately since the advent of catalytic converters.
Why the funding for transit projects NEEDS to come from the gas tax? Why not eliminate the gas tax entirely and take the money from some other tax? Probably a stupid question but I still don't quite get it.
The US Government has spent over a trillion dollars funding a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 6 billion dollars funding a revolt in the Ukraine, at least 9 million dollars funding rebels in Syria (I have not looked at any numbers past what Obama did last September), Billions in beefing up US Local police forces, Billions more on DHS, FEMA, and the TSA, Billions more funding Egypt's various revolutions, and untold amounts in "black budgets" all over Africa. Even the GOA who is supposed to ensure accountability for spent tax dollars, spends millions on a lavish party for 33 people in Las Vegas.
And you think average people who's salaries and average wealth has gone down by nearly 30% in the last decade alone should pay even more money because they could not spent anything on Roads and Infrastructure whilst they pissed away your money everywhere else?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Gas taxes up, corporate taxes down. It doesn't raise money so much as shift the burden away from the wealthy.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
... with a tax increase!
You're an idiot. Raising gas prices will directly raise the price of everything else. Due to inflation everyone will get a 12% paycut immediately.
What do you mean by "temps have not risen for the past 13-17 years"? 9 of the top 10 hottest years on record have been in the past 13 years. More recent data shows the oceans are absorbing 10x the heat energy than the atmosphere. For every 1 joule absorbed by the atmosphere to increase temperatures, the oceans absorbs 10.
Instead of taking a hard look at where the money in the Highway Trust Fund is going, their solution is to simply bring in more money. The HTF was originally set up to fund the building of the Interstate Highway system. Period. That was it's sole purpose. Those funds were transferred to various States to build and expand the IH system as needed.
Fast forward to today and the HTF resources are being funneled into Transit systems, ferry boats, bike paths, and nature trails. All worthy causes but the money should not come out of the HTF. That's why it is underfunded.
This is the same trick that politicians play time and again. It happens with Education, Social Security and other items.
Why are trucks not paying their share compared to what they cost? One fully-loaded tractor-trailer causes as much wear and tear as 9,000 passenger cars. It follows that they should be paying 9,000 times as much in gasoline taxes and vehicle registration/taxes. Trucking has increased dramatically over the last several decades, further adding to the dilapidated condition of our highway infrastructure. Yes, I know this would dramatically increase the cost of goods shipped by truck, especially long-haul trucking. That's exactly what should happen. Products shipped by truck should reflect the real costs of that shipping method so the market can select the most efficient shipping method. As it stands, we're all footing the bill to subsidize an inefficient mode of shipping which is growing in popularity because it's subsidized.
Gas is too cheap so the government must artificially raise the price.
No, infrastructure is too expensive for the funding we have in place. Gas is the best proxy we have for usage of that infrastructure so it's reasonable to tax that. More gas used means more infrastructure repairs needed and less gas used means less use of said infrastructure.
We have set aside funds for infrastructure. 18.4 cents of every single gallon of gas sold in the US! Where does that money actually go?
To maintain the infrastructure - duh. That's pretty much a matter of public record. It's a big country and we have a lot of crumbling roads. Furthermore 18.4 cents doesn't go as far as it did 20 years ago. In fact it is roughly equivalent to $0.11 cents in 1993 dollars once you adjust for inflation. Much of this infrastructure is paid for with federal dollars so it makes sense to tax it at the federal level.
Well over 25% of gas tax funds go to side walks and bike trails and shit like that.
Citation needed. That number smells like you just pulled it out from where the sun don't shine.
Do you have any CONCEPT on what it will cost to charge that Tesla and what the restrictions on charging it will be after all the coal plants shut down in response to Obama's new EPA rules???? Hint: we get over 40% of our electricity from coal.
Take away 40% of the Electricity and what's left will have to be rationed with priorites for hospitals, refrigeration, etc (and of course GOVERNMENT, which when taken together (local,state+fed) is the biggest consumer and will put itself first). I personally doubt he will be able to get those regs fully-implemented while he is still in office (he has a track record with "Obamacare" of pushing the "bad parts" off until after he will leave office) but if he is successful and the stupid feckless GOP in DC fails to stop this, then running your Tesla will be a tough proposition; gas, at any price, will be the more reliable and available form of energy for a car.
And if its going to scale to anything it should be correlated to vehicle weight.
And what good is that if the vehicle rarely gets driven? Gas is a reasonable proxy on average for vehicle weight. Bigger cars generally consume more fuel. Yes there are some gas guzzlers that consume more than their share but there also are some fuel sippers that consume less. There are environmental benefits to taxing those who needlessly consume more of a resource than necessary.
A Ferrari may drink 4x as much gas as a Honda Civic, but it causes the same wear on the infrastructure.
You're looking for a perfect proxy for road usage. Stop. There isn't any perfect measure you could use that is practically feasible. Gas usage is about as good as it gets. Bigger cars generally consume more gas and cars that drive more consume more gas. You price for the average and adjust for inflation. Perfect is the enemy of good here.
Why would you do that? There're the primary source of targeting data for the 700 Billion we spend every year on the military. It would be like buying a brand new GPS and then not loading it with any maps to save money.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The average commute is greater than 5 miles, and less than 5% of the population is served by public transit. Unless you expect to have the avergage person spending 4 or more hours a day walking to and from work, and plan on upgrading the sidewalk infrastructure, I don't think this is viable.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Be careful what you wish for. To make up for lost gas tax revenue, the Virginia GOP led legislature passed a tax on hybrids (which was repealed when the Dems took back over last year).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It directly hits the people most vulnerable. And proposing this at a time when gas has never been more expensive is ludicrous. Maybe instead of buying 50 new submarines this year, they should spend the money on roads instead.
Hey, I have an idea: If you are going to tax gas (state, federal) then let us deduct it from our income taxes. We should not have to pay income tax on it if we paid it in taxes right? Right!!?
You're saying that when you're an old geezer and you NEED your Social Security and Medicare, you're gonna say "that's ok, you can keep the money...just kill me" right?
Average workers are forced to pay-in to these scams all their working years with money they'd otherwise have been able to invest in things with FAR better returns and most do not have enough money left-over to also invest in other ways while still paying all their other general expenses. In addition, Medicare destroyed the private sector for elderly care - when you cross the age line the presumption is that you will shift to Medicare and your long-standing health insurance goes away.
As a result, your argument (a common one among Obama sycophants trying to "poo poo" his DOUBLING of the debt) is complete bull. WHO holds that debt is completely irrelevent if you intend to repay it - it still must be repaid! Actually, if you owe it to your own people the problem is technically worse: If you owe another nation you can just say "nope, we're not going to repay" and if the lender is not likely to go to war against you, you might get away with it or at least get to re-negotiate the terms (this is NOT a good plan for lots of reasons, but it's POSSIBLE and many nations have done it). When you owe your own people, you have a BIG problem... unless you intend to either kill them or be killed by them.
The heavier the vehicle, (generally) the more wear on the road. The heavier the vehicle (generally), the lower MPG and the more gallons purchased. It's about as close to a proportional use tax as you can get without calculating tire size and pressure, weight, tread style, frontal area, coefficient of drag, and driving style, and total miles driven to come up with a more "accurate" number for wear.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Trucks pay additional weight-based fees - precisely to address the additional wear-and-tear.
Beyond that, however, your idea is completely idiotic: ANY expenses applied to commercial trucking are simply "expenses" in the accounting of those businesses - which get shifted into the costs of the products being transported. So ANY tax applied to truckers actually raises the prices of all goods shipped on trucks - which just get passed-through to the consumer. Actually, taxing trucks at all is counter-productive for this very reason: every truck moving a bunch of consumer stuff replaces many cars (with one or two people in each) going to and from stores, factories, distribution centers, etc. ONE Fedex or UPS truck can easily prevent a hundred car trips in just one day.
I don't even notice when gas changes by $.12 per gallon any more. The change in gas prices does not change my need to buy it. Not that I would rather not spend that much, but $.12 per gallon on a 15 gallon tank is only $1.80. Considering I pay $3.50 - $4 per gallon, that is roughly the cost of half a gallon or less. I won't notice it. Even if I fill up every week, $1.80 * 52 weeks is only $93.60 over the course of a year which still is not a large pile of money. If I drank coffee I would probably spend that much on coffee in a month or less.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Your statement that: "That's an interesting conjecture. The fact that inflation has seen its lowest values in decades at a time when the Federal Government has run the highest budget deficits would probably deter most people from reaching that conclusion." WOULD be rational under other conditions, BUT let me help you understand why it's not relevent here:
Paid much attention to Wall St lately???? The stock market is going up and up and up even though the underlying economy is BARELY growing (1st qtr 2014 growth was so low it nearly signalled a dip back into recession) so how can this be happening? Simple: Obama's Federal Reserve has been printing money at record levels for years and they've been pumping it into the banks with the hope it would flow into the economy in the form of home loans, car loans, etc and get the economy moving (a fundamental mis-understaning of eceonomics that leads the Obama administration, all of whom are academics rather than people with practical experience, to think they can "push" demand). The banking sector however, faced with new rules on lending (pushed through by Democrats in the 1st two years of Obama when they controlled the whole government), has tightened the rules on things like home loans - and the money is "finding other uses" (money NEVER just sits there when smart people have it and see ways to profit with it). The cheap printed money is being used on Wall St to buy (or buy-back) stocks, to repay debts (with "cheap" money) etc. The fabulously wealthy are borrowing cheap money at historically-low interest rates, using that cheap money to make lots more money trading stocks, re-paying the borrowed money with gains, and repeating the process. The wealth gap between average people and "the rich" is growing faster than ever, and the smart rich people are investing profits overseas so they will have places to flee to and money (in other currencies) to spend when this merry-go-round stops and collapses on the American middle class who will be left "holding the bag" in a disaster that will make the 2008 meltdown look like a tiny blip
"Then-Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters stated on August 15, 2007 that about 60% of federal gas taxes are used for highway and bridge construction. The remaining 40% goes to earmarked programs. However, revenues from other taxes are also used in federal transportation programs."
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States
Hey, why not raise the gas tax to $3 per gallon? We could fund all kinds of useless crap with that kind of money. All those lies the Republicans tell about market forces are BS. We have those CO2 spewing bastards over a barrel. If they want to drive on roads that were built by and belong to the government, make them pay! Taxes like this also have the charm of regressivity, affecting lower wage earners far more than those in higher income brackets. Who doesn't like that?
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
When Democrats (who want to grow government and "nudge" people into behaving in Democrat-preferred ways while not harming their rich friends) join hands with RINOs (Establishment Republicans who want to grow government and make "little people" cover the costs, rather than harming their rich friends) anybody who is not rich and who does not like being manipulated is "in the cross-hairs".
The gas tax is one of the most-regressive taxes there is; not only does everybody pay it, BUT the poorer part of the population pays a dis-proportionate share both because they tend to live further from work (needing to drive more miles per day) AND because they tend to drive older less-efficient vehicles (they burn more gallons per mile driven).
Democrats, whose powerbase is in big cities and who are generally hungry for more government money, often imagine ways to shield the poor from this by giving them subsidies or getting them onto "mass-transit" (which is completely impractical in most of the country). RINOS simply do not care as long as the Chamber of Commerce says "it's all good!" Actual conservatives and Libertarians (who are HATED by RINOS) are always opposed to garbage like this - MONEY IS FUNGIBLE: when you raise the gas tax, supposedly to generate a bunch of money for the roads, the politicians will simply shift other dollars out of the roads funds for other things they want to spend (buy votes) on, and the net result will be no net increase in roads money but less cash in the pockets of the citizenry. What is required is an audit to show where the record-high gas tax revenue has been being spent.... we need to know EXACTLY where the BILLIONS of dollars already collected every year are going before we give those turkeys any more - this is part of the core issue that kicked-off the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party.
much higher mileage of gasoline cars (33mpg vs 28mpg) ...and in 1993, most Fords got ~22 mpg
Wear and tear on roads is largely based on vehicle weight and time. I used to work in the Delaware Department of Transportation and we'd use wear rates based on usage and its observed current state to calculate when maintenance was needed. One of the main ways vehicles have gained mileage is by reducing weight which also reduces road wear and tear.
many more trucks used for shipping (70% more in 2007 than in 1997) ...and trucks weigh a ton more (quite literally) and thus have a lower MPG (and pay more in gas taxes).
If anything, our gas taxes are probably the most "fair" tax in the country. If hybrids become too big of a problem, it's probably pretty easy to make electric vehicles pay an "road fee" whenever you get your license plate renewed.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
airplanes are a far faster, more efficient means of moving people long distances and don't have insane capital costs to build. We don't need public infrastructure.
Funny you say this, because there appears to be a lot of bias towards understating inflation, the primary driver being those "unfunded liabilities".
Shadow Government Statistics website
Indexing taxation to inflation would tend to counterbalancing that.
Is it actually? I suspect that if you looked at where 80% of the people live, the density is much closer to Europe's. Most of the remaining bits are near-empty. Almost 10% of the US population lives just in the New York City metro area, for example, more than the populations of the 20 least populous states combined! More people even live in just NYC proper than the combined populations of Wyoming, both Dakotas, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, and Nebraska.
Haha wow, 30 cents per gallon in taxes... this is... such a wonderland over there.
Just FYI, here in Germany we pay $3.38 per gallon ONLY IN TAXES. (for a total of around $8 per gallon)
Good lord, cry me a river guys.
What should the price of gas be? Please someone tell us, so we can just raise the tax to meet that price and be done with it. No more arguing on what the price of gas should be any more.
Let it die, suffocating in the gases of its self-righteous bloviation.
that the government does not own or control where any domestic oil is sold or used. We are spending all of that money just to ensure that the oil companies can get a good profit on all of the oil they sell everywhere. If foreign sources dried up, they would gladly sell all US produced oil on the international market where the price would be higher.
Anyway, if you're living below the poverty line, you probably bike
Good luck doing so in a thunderstorm.
or take mass transit, so the gas tax won't affect you directly.
It will if it causes the transit authority to cut back on service.
demand-responsive tolling which is less regressive than fuel taxes
How would such a toll be collected without slowing traffic or angering privacy advocates?
and makes the roads more efficient
Raising the cost of commuting, as the Wired article recommends, would drive up land values near places of work, causing tenants to get evicted as competition for scarce housing drives up rent toward unaffordability. See for example what happened in San Francisco when Google added shuttle buses. Besides, "extra incentive to avoid the most congested hours", as the Wired article put it doesn't help if businesses are open only during "the most congested hours".
No the feds should not put any tax towards road infrastructure because they are not responsible for roads.
Next you'll be telling me that the federal government isn't responsible for postal service. News flash: they're mentioned on the same line of the Constitution.
It really tells you a lot when regressive taxes are increased and not progressive taxes.
because so far the only thing I see trickling down is piss. Seriously. At the risk of being marked troll, can I just ask why we don't lower _all_ regressive taxes and _raise_ progressive taxes? Income tax of 90% makes sense when it's on your income AFTER $1 million/year. It means that if you want to be really, really, sickeningly wealthy you really have to work at it. Or you have to actually _invest_ that money instead of sitting on it and grinding the entire economy to a halt with your greed. The 1% have something like 50% of their assests in CASH. That's cash that's doing nothing in our economy. They're basically ending all human progress in an effort to hang on to their wealth and status. Heck, that's more or less the end game of conservationism. :(
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Whatever the cause, we would need to mitigate sea level rises with measures such as relocation or sea walls, all of which are costly. The best available science points to AGW as the cause of the rise, and therefore it makes sense to pay for the mitigation with AGW sources.
The problem is that the "warming" is an average of far wilder fluctuations in weather. The earth doesn't just get uniformly a bit warmer, and the localized effects can be devastating. More importantly, even if a bit of warming is beneficial on the average, continuing the trend - especially past a certain threshold into a feedback loop of uncontrollable warming - is obviously foolish. Unless you claim to know exactly how much greenhouse gasses we can release into the atmosphere for best effect, it would be prudent to not find out the hard way.
"Today’s on-road vehicles produce over a third of the carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides in our atmosphere", says the Union of Concerned Scientists. The bottom of that article discusses the pollution's effects on public health.
C'mon, really? They think their constituents want to be gouged more for "essentials"?
from http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258
Social Security: Another 24 percent of the budget, or $814 billion, paid for Social Security, which provided monthly retirement benefits averaging $1,294 to 37.9 million retired workers in December 2013. Social Security also provided benefits to 2.9 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.2 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 11 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents in December 2013.
I know very few places where $1300/mo is enough to live on when you're over 65 and/or disabled. America doesn't have Nationalized Socialized medicine. Even if you manage to get on one of the State run programs you're laying out $100-$200/mo just for meds (God Bless the Big Pharma). Then there's Rent, food, transportation (to the doctor's appointments that are keeping you alive) etc, etc. I know a few ppl on SS Disability, and they live very, very shitty lives.
So can you tell me, why is it we can get a man on the moon but we can't take care of a few million old people and a few million disabled? Are we really that pathetic as a country that we can't just solve this problem?
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Americans are attached to their cars big time. They would probably rather you sleep with their wife or fondle their kids than limit their ability to burn gasoline and ruin life on this planet. I don't see a political future for anyone wanting higher gas taxes or prices.
They continue raking in billions in profits, gasoline is around $4.00/ gal now and they still haven't paid a bunch of fisherman who gave it their all to help clean the mess that an alcoholic captain of a tanker emptied into the most pristine place on the planet. And, it still remains a mess just below every surface that oil touched. Oil soaked into one of the oldest sweetest fishing vessels in Prince William Sound and eventually gave in to a City sponsored bon fire. Thanks for nothing Exxon.
Why not try to be original
Stop copying our mistakes
Pita the TPPA isn't in place else we would sue you for stealing our stupid idea
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They've been stealing from the account... effectively. Yes yes... they passed some laws that let them siphon money off the gas tax account to pay for buses and subways and other things... but the point of the gas tax was to pay for roads. Period. Not even bridges. Roads.
I would rather have a musical chairs system for funding things like this... You know the child's game where some number of children run around a circle of chairs while music plays... and over time one chair is removed... so that every time one of the children gets eliminated. I remember enjoying it when I was six. Children that find a seat continue the game. Children that don't are out and wait for the next round.That is, fund the roads first with the gas tax money. Fund them completely. They get first draw on the account period. The gas tax should only be raised if the tax is not able to fund the roads if 100 percent of it is directed to the roads. Once they're funded, you can take what is left to pay for the bridges. If the bridges don't have enough from that then you can put a toll both on the bridge. However, in nearly all cases the left over in the gas tax should fund the bridges without any trouble. Next you come into the real culprit here... mass transit, bike paths, and other things that really should be funded locally and not draw from a national or state tax. I have no problem with gas tax money going to these things IF there is money left over. It is NOT okay if they're impoverishing was is basically the road fund to pay for buses etc.
There probably will not be enough left over to pay for the buses etc. And the solution here is pretty obvious... either raise bus fares OR raise local taxes to increase subsidies for buses. You do NOT take from state or national road taxes to pay for you bike paths and city only mass transit system. The road network serves the whole country which is why a gas tax is legitimate. Furthermore, why are motorists paying a gas tax to pay for buses or bikes.
If you want to fund those things either levy a general tax on the public at large or tax the people that actually use the service. I know... a lot of the people on the buses are not terribly well off so who wants to put a regressive tax on them. Me neither. And with bikes we all feel an eco friendly warm glow about people getting around using muscle power. Great... Really... but you don't pay for that with a road tax for the same reason you shouldn't fund your education program by putting a tax on cell phones. They do that as well by the way. Your cell phone bill... a part of that is going to all sorts of unrelated government programs that have nothing to do with communication and especially not with your cell phone service.
Please keep the charity projects to the general fund and stop trying to hide bullshit stealth taxes in the literally hundreds of little fees we pay all the time so you can pretend like it isn't part of the general tax burden. Just man up and put it in the general budget. If people aren't impressed with your idea then guess what... your program lost the game of budgetary musical chairs... get over it... lots of programs and ideas aren't going to get funded. Don't be a sneak and hide the tax somewhere that the rubes won't find it. It just makes guys like me increasingly cynical while giving false impressions of what things cost to the incurious.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The US population is much more spread out. Our land area is over twice the size of the entire EU but we have only about 63% as much people. What works there doesn't necessarily work here.
Because your population is evenly spread over the whole landmass? I thought you also had towns and cities.
Fuck, the price will fluctuate as much over a couple weeks over ANYTHING.
> Pollution from cars--hmm, not much lately since the advent of catalytic converters.
Eh, these don't reduce CO2, which is also pollution.
And get modded flamebait
In Europe, gas costs the equivalent of $10 per gallon...
Why not OK the keystone pipeline? We would get a more stable source of oil, generate jobs and reduce gas prices.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
It's 12 cents... Get a grio
so the dems DONT actually believe in everyone "paying their fair share" huh?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Even though they use a lot of fuel, heavy vehicles still don't pay their way. People driving autos subsidize trucks because trucks wear out the roads. Autos put very little wear on roads compared to heavy trucks. Increase fuel taxes, but increase per-mile taxes on heavy vehicles to shift the burden back where it belongs. Or increase taxes on undyed diesel fuel for trucks only. Put yellow dye in diesel fuel at regular pumps that cars can use. If trucks are found with any dye in the fuel, they're in trouble. As now, if cars are found with other than yellow dye (i.e., purple), they're in trouble. I'm only aware of one color of dye currently in use, maybe there are others. So what happens? Shipping costs go up, creating incentives to buy high-weight/bulk-to-value products grown or manufactured closer to home.
That's because of zoning laws that set minimum apartment sizes. Again, that isn't Google's fault.
How would one go about getting laws against putting an arguably unsafe number of occupants in a small apartment changed?
Or they could rent the transponder
For how much per day?
In any case, it would be good to make the same transponder work on all interstates.
Good luck getting the several states to agree on anything, especially when utility-like companies use competing for the exclusive contract in each state as their excuse to have a local monopoly.
Again, what about the tax savings when the tolls make the freeway more efficient in cars per day than taxes?
It is my hypothesis that "tax savings when the tolls make the freeway more efficient in cars per day than taxes" would be a drop in the bucket compared to how much more it would cost to hire people to keep, say, a locally owned radio control vehicle store open 24/7 instead of 8 hours a day M-F and 6 hours on Saturday. I would be interested to read evidence otherwise.
The problem with the Fed Gas Tax is, well it's the Feds who would be in charge of divvying up the funds and I wouldn't trust them to hold my wallet for five minutes. If it actually went for fixing the lousy fucking roads and bridges in this country, then fine raise it 20 cents but once they're fixed drop it back and that's the problem because once these money grubbing assholes get your hooks into you they never let up.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Thank you so much for pointing this out.