As if we need another reason to despise them...

[babylonsister]

Link to tweet

[dalton99a]

1. Make the working poor poorer

[JPPaverage]

2. GOP equals gas overpriced

Wonder how much he's getting from the oil companies?

[genxlib]

3. This won't be popular

But it is long overdue.

Much of infrastructure spending comes from the gas tax and not general revenue. It doesn't really have to be that way but it is a fairly straightforward direct user tax that links expenditures directly to the funding mechanism.

Most taxes are based on a percentage so they naturally rise over time with the costs of goods. Gas taxes are a set amount of cents per gallon. So they have not gone up at all in 25 years. If anything, they may have gone down (relative to miles traveled) as fuel efficiency standards have gone up. Meanwhile, the costs of infrastructure construction has gone up tremendously in that time.

If you believe in infrastructure, you have to believe in funding it. If we don't fund it, we end up falling behind. Even a lot of spending that we do get is reliant on private funding. This has been the fundamental flaw in Trump's earlier infrastructure ideas. He wants to outsource everything to private industry. But those private financiers are looking for profits and that just ends up costing us more in tax cuts and user fees.

Aside from the direct funding issues, a gas tax is a form of "sin tax" that can drive public policy. It pushes for higher fuel efficiency standards and encourages (and subsidizes) transit use. You can even avoid it entirely if you buy electric vehicles.

I get that this would feel like an affront to the middle class. i would soften it by proposing a 10 year phase in to allow people to replace vehicles and change commuting patterns with foreknowledge of what costs were coming.

Having said that, it won't happen because politicians are cowards and personal use of a gas guzzling car is seen as an American birthright. So we will continue to lag behind in infrastructure AND cook the planet.

[Renew Deal]

4. This is typical republican politics

Reduce taxes and raise every other fee possible. They boil the frog