Raising taxes as Republican ideologues are about to shut the federal government down, again? Hah!
The federal Highway Trust Fund is out of gas, and lawmakers should consider serious reforms ahead of this fall’s Congressional debate on transportation funding, cautions a new report from National Center for Policy Analysis Senior Research Fellow Lloyd Bentsen IV.
“Inflation, the diversion of funds to non- highway programs and poor government policies, and constant overspending by the Highway Trust Fund have resulted in a $1 billion deficit in 2015 alone,” says Bentsen. “Current gas and other fuel taxes are failing to provide adequate funding for the Highway Transportation Fund.”
Bentsen suggests a series of political impossible actions, saying lawmakers should consider:
• Eliminating the Mass Transit Fund and all other non-highway funding through the Department of Transportation, saving $16 billion annually for additional highway funding.
• Raising the federal gas tax to compensate for inflation (it was last raised in 1993) and thereafter adjusting for future inflation would bring in 40% more, or $10 billion a year.
• Repealing the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires paying local prevailing wages on federally funded large construction projects. (Good luck with this – cut wages for the struggling middle class?)
“The previous failures of the federal government to manage fuel taxes leave two major choices: to dramatically reform and amend the way highways are funded, or to eliminate the federal gas tax and leave the stewardship of the interstate system to the states,” says Bentsen.
On the last quixotic dream, ask the people in Michigan about how well the state has done turning Michigan roads into those of a Third World Country.
See: Out of Gas: The Highway Trust Fund: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/out-of-gas-the-highway-trust-fund
