Last week, USA Today reported that Americans are paying “the lowest gasoline taxes since the early days of the automobile.” That’s right, it’s 2010, but adjusted for inflation we are paying 1920s prices at the pump. According to an analysis by the newspaper, Americans spend just $19 in federal, state, and local gas taxes for every 1,000 miles driven, the lowest since 1929 and half of what was paid in 1975.
Unfortunately, these taxes are the predominant funding source for transportation. Three months ago, USPIRG released a sobering report describing the dismal state of our country’s transportation infrastructure and what a political policy of low gas taxes have bought us:
- More than 90,000 miles of crumbling highways
- More than 70,000 structurally deficient bridges
- “C” grade for nation’s bridges from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
- “D” grade for nation’s roadways from ASCE
The 18.4 cent per gallon federal gas tax has stayed flat since 1993, and the USA Today report points out what policymakers have understood for a while: volatile gasoline prices, increasing numbers of fuel efficient vehicles, and less driving have further eroded the value of the tax. The tax has lost 33% of its purchasing power since 1993. In the last two years, the federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for both road and transit projects, has relied on emergency transfers from general funds to stay solvent. It’s a similar story at the state level. One of the clearest examples is New Jersey, where the gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1988 and the state Transportation Trust Fund is about to go bankrupt.
So far the White House and Congress have dealt with the country’s transportation funding problem by not dealing with it, punting the question of how to fund the next federal transportation bill through 5 consecutive extensions of SAFETEA-LU since it expired in September 2009. The current extension is set to expire at the end of 2010.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration and Senate leadership expressed their preference to delay discussing a new transportation bill until spring 2011. To date, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has been the lone voice publicly urging his colleagues in Congress to pass a transportation bill this year.
They absolutely do have to increase the fuel tax to pay for more infrastructure- both with all new links as well as fixing those existing.
Alas, though, the increased taxes will be thwarted for regional political reasons — including NYC’s wealthiest political donors keeping the proportional vehicular burden in the Bronx. And more broadly, it will be pushed, not by the relatively easy way of simply raising the fuel taxes, but rather the costlier real time tracking ‘road use’ tax, consistent with the broader agenda of tracking the general public.