Senators propose 12-cent gas tax increase

beerftw · Jun 20, 2014

mtm1963 said:
this is semantics routing it thru the general fund, government accounting procedures. its on the books how much the tax brings in vs what it pays out.

the fact is, the gas tax has not been able to fund the updates to the transportation infrastructure, so there has been a need to borrow money from the "actual" general fund.

well the need to borrow from the general fund has been due to the fact the tax was at a set price per gallon,and not adjustable with inflation.considering gas was probably a nickel a gallon when first implemented,then rose to a quarter a gallon,then the us left the gold standard causing heavy inflation and stagflation,so just there by the original gas taxes,it was eventually irrelevant.it has been upped since then but inflation has constantly outpaced it.

another theory is cars becoming more efficient,which is bs,during the 70's amd 80's,compacts got better mpg than cars do now,and even surpassed hybrids,alot of subcompacts got 50-60 mpg,and alot of v6 cars got 40 mpg.so inflation played a role when the tax didnt fluctuate with the value of a dollar overtime,but even on the same argument ignoring the general fund discussion,we will have the same issue 5 or so years,as the dollar constantly inflates overtime,but the tax doesnt.

JasperL · Jun 20, 2014

Gaius46 said:
It's always fair when the users of the service pay for it.

Roads have to be maintained. Your $300 million figure is not an avoidable expense. It has to be paid or the roads fall apart. The only real question is how to pay for it. As I've stated it only makes sense to charge the users of the roads for their upkeep. Why should some guy who doesn't own a car pay to maintain roads that you use? Yes he buys stuff that is shipped by trucks but the trucking company can pass those costs on to him by raising their fees.

Further it makes sense to tie the cost to how much people drive and the types of vehicles they drive. After all a small 4 cylinder car that gets driven 1000 miles a year to and from a local commuter rail station does not cause nearly as much wear and tear on roads as an 18 wheeler driven a couple hundred thousand miles a year. That means the fairest way to apportion costs has to be tied to fuel consumption - as an approximation of both vehicle size and miles driven - or some formula based on mileage driven and gross weight.

I agree. Gas taxes are regressive, but of all of the regressive excise and sales taxes (besides alcohol and tobacco taxes), I have the least problem with a user tax like the gas tax. There just isn't a better way to raise that money, and it does a good job of matching the costs with the benefits of the spending.

As to the idea that people drive less, I don't have any stats but in my suburb I haven't seen any real decrease in traffic as the price of gas has gone from $1.00 a gallon to $4.00.
People still need to get to work, to the market etc and still take vacations. And if driving goes down so what? That leads to less wear on the roads and lowers the cost of upkeep. And less pollution, more people walking or biking. All good things.

Story here: Vehicle Miles Driven: Another Population-Adjusted Low

I can't load the image, link here: http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/indicators/miles-driven.gif

Bottom line is miles driven peaked around 2007 and have dropped a small bit since then. Prior to 2007, it was one long period of increase from 1980 or so to 2007.

One other point, every year the infrastructure gearheads point out that we have several $trillion in necessary infrastructure repairs and maintenance backlogged, just to keep what we have functional. For those who say we need to find another way to pay - what would they suggest? More borrowing is the only realistic option, given current deficits.

zip98053 · Jun 21, 2014

JayDubya said:
More taxes? Hell no.

Let me translate. "We don't need no stinking roads."

The infrastructure in the US is turning to crap because we aren't willing to pay for being a first world country.

We don't have to worry about illegal immigration. We just need to wait a decade. By then, the conservatives will have so debilitated the economy that people will be fleeing to Mexico.

molten_dragon · Jun 21, 2014

mtm1963 said:
i am not against the tax increase on gas because its needed but what we need to do is to have all tax dollars go into the general fund to pay for the needs of the country in stead of having a tax to fund this or that(SS and medicare are other examples).

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators unveiled a bipartisan plan Wednesday to raise federal gasoline and diesel taxes for the first time in more than two decades, pitching the proposal as a solution to Congress' struggle to pay for highway and transit programs.

The plan offered by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would raise the 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gas tax and 24.4-cents-a- gallon diesel tax by 12 cents each over the next two years, and then index the taxes to keep pace with inflation.

Yahoo!

Considering that Michigan is trying to pass a 25 cent per gallon increase in the state gas tax, I'd prefer not. 37 cents a gallon is a pretty steep increase. I get that the roads have to be maintained, but I'd rather the money came from other places in the budget. Considering that federal highway funding is only about $36 billion, that doesn't seem like it would that difficult.

I also am not a huge proponent of gas taxes in the first place. They don't accurately charge people for the amount that they use the roads.

Senators propose 12-cent gas tax increase

beerftw

proud ammosexual

JasperL

zip98053

Active member

molten_dragon

Anti-Hypocrite