Gas Tax - Granite Grok

Gas Tax

NH Gas tax payer(H/T: The Hill via Instapundit) – reformatted, emphasis mine:

A gas tax hike is dead on arrival in Congress, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday. Transportation advocates have pushed to increase or index to inflation the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax as lawmakers scramble to come up with a way to pay for an extension of an infrastructure funding measure that is scheduled to expire on May 31. McCarthy said Tuesday that lawmakers are not willing to ask drivers to pay more at the pump to finance new transportation projects.  “I think passing a gas tax is politically impossible,” he said, pointing out that he just paid $3.20 a gallon to fill up his car in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif.

The gas tax has been the traditional source of transportation funding since its inception in the 1930s. The tax has not been increased since 1993, however, and improvements in auto fuel efficiency have sapped its purchasing power.  The federal government typical spends about $50 billion per year on transportation projects, but the gas tax only brings in approximately $34 billion annually at its current rate.

Well, our willingness to pay more in taxes has certainly been sapped.  Tell you what, boys – you start showing that government really is providing good value, then we’ll talk.  Besides, you “Republicans” keep telling us you’re for “smaller government”; how do you propose to do that when you keep wanting more and more money?

And just like here in NH, money is always being siphoned for other than highway projects – bike lanes, railway systems that never pay for themselves…if they can dream it (and “rationalize it” in their own heads, for everything is always connected to the stuff they believe voters would approve of).  The worst part, however?

That “or index to inflation” bit which is “we all are gonna make it sound good but it really let’s us off the hook from making a hard political decision”.  Republicans in the NH Senate tried that and got pushback.  WHY should we allow politicians at any level to not make the hard decisions we send them to DC / Concord to make in the first place?  Setting ANY tax to that of inflation puts that tax into that “Mandatory” bucket.  More slated to spending, they keep complaining “Dang, I’d love to help cut the budget, but all that mandatory spending stuff just keeps getting in the way”.

When they say that, just remind them that they are LYING.  A law created that spending; a law can remove it.  But as with the “ index to inflation” crap, they no longer have the courage of earlier times – they just squirm and deflect.

Back to the gas tax.  Tell you what, boys – if you can’t keep it in budget, let it go.  The interstate highway system is now 60 plus years old – let it go.  To the States, that is.  The Feds don’t have to do everything – in fact, they’ve only duplicated a lot what was already going on at the State level anyways.  Block grant all that $34 billion back to us from whom it was taken in the first place.

And then, best of all, ramp it down to zero and let the States not only be responsible for spending it but also paying for it.  I can guarantee they will be far more efficient in spending their own money than when they spend “your’s”.  And the bonus part is that WE, the font of all money in the first place, will have an easier time to get to those that represent and spend that money.  It is FAR easier to get to the Concord (NH) poli-denizians than it is to get at the DC ones.

A win-win all the way around if it were to work out right – better representation, more efficiency, less taxes.  That is, IF expectations were met. But then again, I can walk down the street and yell at my elected dunderhead – still a win.

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