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posted by martyb on Thursday November 13 2014, @10:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the pump-it-up dept.

Pat Garofalo writes in an op-ed in US News & World Report that with the recent drop in oil prices, there's something policymakers can do that will offset at least some of the negative effects of the currently low prices, while also removing a constant thorn in the side of American transportation and infrastructure policy: Raise the gas tax. The current 18.4 cent per gallon [federal] gas tax has not been raised since 1993, making it about 11 cents per gallon today, in constant dollars. Plus, as fuel efficiency has gotten better and Americans have started driving less, the tax has naturally raised less revenue anyway. And that's a problem because the tax fills the Highway Trust Fund, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, broke so that in recent years Congress has had to patch it time and time again to fill the gap. According to the Tax Policy Center's Howard Gleckman, if Congress doesn't make a move, "it will fumble one of those rare opportunities when the economic and policy stars align almost perfectly." The increase can be phased in slowly, a few cents per month, perhaps, so that the price of gas doesn't jump overnight. When prices eventually do creep back up thanks to economic factors, hopefully the tax will hardly be noticed.

Consumers are already starting to buy the sort of gas-guzzling vehicles, including Hummers, that had been going out of style as gas prices rose; that's bad for both the environment and consumers, because gas prices are inevitably going to increase again. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, taxes last year, even before the current drop in prices, made up 12 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, down from 28 percent in 2000. And compared to other developed countries, US gas taxes are pretty much a joke. While we're at it, an even better idea, as a recent report from the Urban Institute makes clear, would be indexing the gas tax to inflation (pdf), so this problem doesn't consistently arise. "The status quo simply isn't sustainable, from an infrastructure or environmental perspective," concludes Garofalo. "So raise the gas tax now; someday down the line, it will look like a brilliant move."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Friday November 14 2014, @02:26PM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday November 14 2014, @02:26PM (#115902) Homepage Journal

    They do if the roads fall apart, yes. The argument in the above comments about this subject is one of the worst quality debates I've ever seen and a lot of Soylentils should be ashamed of themselves for this.

    I realize this is a US story and therefore it's bound to get a US-centric argument surrounding it, but here's something for all you US folks to consider. Using my basic maths skills to convert the UK £/L price for fuel into $/USG, I've come up with a rough UK price for regular unleaded of $7.27/USG, subject to $3.42/USG VAT fuel duty.

    Now, it's tough to do a direct comparison because the road networks in the US and the UK are so vastly different, but does 11 cents on the gallon actually make the slightest difference to the state of your roads? I'm guessing there's either quite a lot of other funding coming in to keep the network in shape (and thus this entire debate is pointless given the miniscule scale of difference even doubling the fuel tax rate would make), or your roads are falling apart.

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  • (Score: 1) by SecurityGuy on Friday November 14 2014, @02:39PM

    by SecurityGuy (1453) on Friday November 14 2014, @02:39PM (#115914)

    Roads aren't solely paid for the federal government. States also tax gas. Gasoline tax in my neck of the woods is about $0.40. There are also toll roads. I haven't been to the UK, but roads here seem fine.

    The debate is also painfully stupid because gas prices were a lot lower until fairly recently. Yes, we can manage cheaper gas just fine. We did it for a long time.

    • (Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Friday November 14 2014, @06:14PM

      by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday November 14 2014, @06:14PM (#115989) Homepage Journal

      Okay, but $0.40 of state tax plus $0.11 of federal tax is still only $0.51, a tiny fraction of UK fuel duty. What other revenue streams pay for the maintenance of the road network in the US?

      In the UK, tolls are generally reserved for bridges and tunnels and central London's congestion charge.

      • (Score: 1) by SecurityGuy on Friday November 14 2014, @07:39PM

        by SecurityGuy (1453) on Friday November 14 2014, @07:39PM (#116024)

        I don't know that it really costs that much to maintain roads. Driving over one causes negligible wear. I don't have the cite handy, but IIRC nearly all the wear on roads is due to heavy trucks. My car doesn't cost that much to drive across a road, so why should I be paying a lot of tax for something that doesn't cost a lot of money?

        Tolls aren't reserved for bridges and tunnels here, though that's where you're most likely to find them. There are also the occasional toll highways.

        Still, my point remains that the notion that a thing costs a lot of money somewhere else, therefore it should cost a lot of money here, too, is fallacious. It should cost what it actually costs. Maybe you guys across the pond should be paying a lot less?

        • (Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Friday November 14 2014, @11:12PM

          by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday November 14 2014, @11:12PM (#116065) Homepage Journal

          True, driving over a road doesn’t cause a lot of wear - I found a UK Department of Transport report that stated a cost of £0.003 per vehicle-mile for the subset of major roads known as the Strategic Road Network. This equated to annual network maintenance costs of £30-60k per mile, depending on region.

          While investigating further, I found this report [soylentnews.org] from the Road User Alliance. The diagram entitled “UK Road Spending vs Road Revenue” makes for fascinating reading as it shows total tax revenue from road use at £58bn, a total road use value to the economy of £119bn… and total government spending on roads of £7.7bn. Turns out that in the UK, road use generates quite a lot of revenue for spending in other areas. Given the ubiquity of the road system and how often it’s used in conjunction with other activities, that doesn’t seem particularly out of line to me personally.

          Although I couldn’t find a per-vehicle-mile figure to compare US and UK road maintenance costs, I did find an article [taxfoundation.org] with a fairly telling statement that provides the perfect contrast for the US and UK approaches to road funding:

          "Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion on highways"

          So it seems the UK policy is to subsidise other activities through road transit taxation while the US policy is to subsidise road transit through other taxation.

          Sorry, did I just ruin the entire argument you morons were having?