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2 US Senators Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax Increase

Posted by timothy on from the electrifying-news dept.

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.

25 of 619 comments (clear)

  1. Good! by DogDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Good! by rogoshen1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      We need more regressive taxes in this country! Screw the poor people!

      (Yes, consumption taxes on essential goods with demand tending towards inelasticity are regressive)

      (my tinfoil hat tells me Corker likes this due to Toyota manufacturing in his state, and the increase in hybrid sales due to gas price hikes.)

    2. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Too cheap?? LOL

      What makes you think the added income will go towards infrastructure? The existing taxes are already supposed to pay for that but have been diverted to various pet projects..

      Stupid much?

    3. Re:Good! by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think the tax needs to be a percentage tax.

      I agree that our infrastructure is suffering due to lack of funding.
      Adjusted for inflation, this tax has lost almost 75% of the purchasing power it had 20 years ago.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    4. Re:Good! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have a richer middle class than the US, as of this year?

      just in case every single fact needs a link

    5. Re:Good! by Albanach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Supply and demand. If you make travel by road artificially cheap (which it is - at least 1/3 of road budgets come from general taxation) then people will drive more rather than looking for public transit alternatives. The result is those alternatives are never created and those who would otherwise rely on them, for example the disabled who are unable to drive, lose out big time.

    6. Re:Good! by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/a...

      1993 Average income: 23,132.67
      2013 Average income: 44,321.67

      Roads and Bridges, like firefighters and law enforcement offers, are a legitimate function of government. Funding for the roads has been cut in half by inflation and the infrastructure is becoming dangerous. Especially bridges.

      If the tax had been set at 18%- then it would have scaled with gasoline prices. But with the increasing share of hybrids, much higher mileage of gasoline cars (33mpg vs 28mpg), many more trucks used for shipping (70% more in 2007 than in 1997) (roughly 15 million today vs 4 million in 1993), and now purely electric cars the tax needs to be changed to reflect today's reality.

      What we really need is to remove the gasoline tax and replace it with a mileage tax.

      I read a lot of 1850's newspapers and it's funny because with the civil war approaching, the voters and legislators then seemed more rational than our voters and legislators today.

      You *can't* *have* the roads for *free*.
      It *costs* money to build and maintain the road system.

      Grow up.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    7. Re:Good! by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      " Because one only needs to look at Ontario(once the primary GDP producer of Canada) to see what high energy prices, and poor government decision making do."

      Indeed, everyone should try that. Some of the best test scores on the planet, one of the highest percentages of post-secondary education, billions and billions in biomed research every year, and a long, healthy life span.

      Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe if you took off the crap coloured glasses you might not thing everything stinks so much.

      Well, there is the winter...

    8. Re:Good! by GlassHeart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because a good deal of the cost of gasoline has been externalized. Below are some examples:

      1. The efforts of the US Navy to maintain peace in the middle east shipping lanes. The US consumed some 134 billion gallons of gasoline in 2013, and the budget of the US Navy is about $150 billion. It's reasonable to assume that a few cents per gallon should be charged to help pay for the Navy.
      2. The increased incidences of respiratory diseases due to air pollution. Medical care is expensive in the US, and things that harm public health should at the very least help pay for it.
      3. The costs of global warming.

      Obviously, gasoline is not the sole driver of these, but it makes sense to better account for the true cost of using gasoline. Note that the gasoline tax has not changed in absolute terms since 1993, which means it's lost about 40% of its value to inflation.

      This isn't to say that the 12 cent proposal is fair, or that sharply increasing gasoline prices is wise, but that a gradual increase to match its true cost is sensible.

    9. Re:Good! by Sloppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hey man, maybe this tax is a good idea, but the whole "Gas is much too cheap in the US," thing is a pretty dumb thing to say. There is no such thing as "too cheap." By all means, end the gas subsidies and externalities (e.g, middle east wars, not having to pay to plant forests to soak up CO2 pollution, etc) and add any taxes that are appropriate (e.g. fuel usage and road wear maybe aren't an exact match but they're pretty close; so I'd say gax taxes to pay for highways are a pretty decent idea), but even 10 cents per gallon wouldn't be "too cheap" because nothing can ever possibly be too cheap.

      That said, gas sure is cheap. I can buy gas cheaper than I can buy Coca Cola and it's sure worth a lot more.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    10. Re:Good! by Luthair · · Score: 4, Informative

      While we're on analogies - what you're saying is you can live on a wage from 20-years ago today and ignore the inflation that has happened in that period?

      Remember that this is a fixed rate set 21-years ago, while the costs associated maintaining infrastructures have gone up. Further, cars have also became substantially more fuel efficient reducing the per km value of the tax as well without corresponding reduction of wear or demand on the infrastructure.

    11. Re:Good! by NotSanguine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Supply and demand. If you make travel by road artificially cheap (which it is - at least 1/3 of road budgets come from general taxation) then people will drive more rather than looking for public transit alternatives. The result is those alternatives are never created and those who would otherwise rely on them, for example the disabled who are unable to drive, lose out big time.

      What is more, cheap gasoline further externalizes the environmental costs of greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. Making gasoline more expensive may cause some short-term pain, but if it gives incentives to ICE owners/users to reduce emissions, either by driving less, using electric vehicles, public transportation, etc. ICE vehicle makers will also scramble to make more fuel efficient cars. We saw this effect during and after the 1973 oil embargo.

      N.B. I live in a major US city where owning a car is a serious liability. YMMV. Pun intended.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    12. Re:Good! by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 5, Informative

      Our petrol costs $NZ2.20/L. It's been over $2 for years now.

      Translation:
      Our gasoline costs $7.24/gallon. It's been over $6.50 for years now.

    13. Re:Good! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is that a gas tax is VERY regressive and hits the economy where it is the weakest:

      Yes, gas taxes are regressive, but there are ways to fix that. The best way is to reduce other regressive taxes, that often cause even more harm to the economy, to offset the gax tax rise. For instance, we could reduce payroll taxes, which tend to be very regressive. High gas taxes mean less imported oil. High payroll taxes means fewer jobs. So that would be a very good tradeoff.

    14. Re:Good! by djlemma · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think a tax on gasoline is far easier to implement than a tax on mileage, and makes a lot of sense. The government wants to give incentive to high mileage vehicles and electric vehicles, so unless you have a different rate category for the mileage tax it would effectively punish them. Also, the amount of wear caused by a vehicle is proportional to its weight, so to be fair you'd need to put a higher mileage tax on heavy vehicles... That's already basically accounted for with a gasoline tax, since the heavy vehicles necessarily use more fuel, and at least for now you won't find too many EV/Hybrid semi trucks out on the road.
      I'm not necessarily opposed to having some sort of tax based on usage (based on odometer readings I suppose, which would require all states to adopt annual inspections) but I think the tax on gasoline is a necessity as well. I guess I'm the opposite of the person you were responding to. :)

    15. Re:Good! by Copid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Doesn't matter which country we buy it from specifically. Oil is a global market and disruptions in part of the supply jack up prices everywhere. I'm open to the idea that our poking a stick in the Middle East may not be generating much net stability, but on the assumption that it does, the primary reason we care about what goes on there enough to spend mony on it is that they're a big chunk of the world's oil supply.

      --
      An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
    16. Re:Good! by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Dude...
      You are using inflation adjusted figures for 1993.

      Median income in 1993 was $30,210.. which adjusted for inflation is $48,884.

      In 1993, the tax was 18.4 cents.. which adjusted for inflation would be 30 cents.

      So 12 cents higher. Hmmmm. The math checks.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    17. Re:Good! by Cimexus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As someone that moved to the US a couple of years ago but have previously lived in Europe, Japan and Australia - you guys do have very cheap fuel compared to virtually any other developed country you care to name.

      Those other countries/regions are in decreasing order of cost ... while fuel in Australia is only maybe 1.5x the cost in the US, Europe is close to 2.5-3.0x.

      The difference is of course down to the levels of taxation (the actual cost of oil/fuel itself is relatively similar everywhere on earth). But frankly, US roads are in terrible condition compared to the average road in those other regions I mentioned. I'd be glad to pay more for fuel if we could get some decent roads out of it. Most of them here in the Midwest are horribly bumpy and uneven ... patches upon patches upon patches on roads that really should have been completely ripped up and relayed years ago. I kind of understand now why cars don't seem to last as long in the US as in other countries - it's partly weather (particularly winter salt), but partly that they get slowly rattled to pieces death just by driving around!

    18. Re:Good! by Alex+Zepeda · · Score: 4, Informative

      And you'd be wrong.

      https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/motor...

      The revenue from the collected Federal fuel taxes are deposited into the Highway Trust Fund, which has several accounts. Though the percentages vary depending on the fuel type, the majority (approximately 83 to 87%) is deposited into the Highway Account, to be used on road construction and maintenance. An additional amount (approximately 11 to 15%) goes to the Mass Transit Account, and for many fuels, 0.1 cents per gallon goes to the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund.

      --
      The revolution will be mocked
  2. Yes, let's tax the poor by iceperson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

  3. Fuck. That. by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  4. Index it to inflation by bigpat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Let's be fair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The government only pulled in $1,934,919,000,000 this year so there's obviously not enough to go around.

  6. Cost rise and so must funding by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:Why not? by jandersen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A few quick calculations, for comparison:

    In UK, 1 litre of petrol (gasoline) costs about 1.2 GBP. 1 US gallon = 3.7 litres, so that works out as 7.57 USD per gallon. The OP doesn't actually say what you guys pay, but I get the impression that it is less by a wide margin. The US is also, I believe, the largest economy on the planet, and you spend more energy, per capita, than any other nation in the world. Perhaps you should tighten up a bit on the way you waste energy - I assume it must wasted, because it doesn't look like all that extra energy results in higher, actual production.

    I'm sorry I haven't got loads of sympathy, but it does look like a luxury problem to me. Find a way to change the situation - fix the inequalities in your society, so the poorest don't have to struggle in hopeless poverty in order to feed the indulgencies of the rich.