I believe... it may be time to raise the gasoline tax
JoeUser Forums
Something that a few people missed me saying over the last few days (see article: Minn Bridge problems Bush fault, no, Clinton! no, Bush!) is that I believe it may be time to raise the gasoline tax in this country (the U.S.A.)
I hate the idea of raising taxes, and hate the idea of paying taxes, and the thought of paying $0.20 - $0.75 more per gallon in gasoline taxes doesn't appeal to me all that much until... Well, until I start thinking about the crappy roads I have to drive on, and how the road surfaces haven't been replaced, or at least not adequately replaced in many, many years in some cases.
I drive on roads that have seen cracks sealed up numerous times. Patches have been laid upon patches, and the roadways show their age and the long term wear and abuse that have resulted from years and years of many more vehicles than originally planned for running over them.
Roadways are things that are supposed to be paid for primarily from user fees. User fees in the form of gasoline taxes and fees levied upon those that drive motor vehicles. Vehicle registration fees and the like. Fees that impact directly upon the user, rather than (hopefully) unfairly hitting those that can least afford it.
People that primarily use mass transit don't typically have to concern themselves with gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees and that sort of stuff because they are not directly using motor vehicles. They may be riders of buses and such, but generally they aren't directly using the roadways through their own personally owned vehicle, or their own commercial vehicle.
Unfortunately, over the last 20+ years, the cost of doing business has increased many times over, and the cost of building infrastructure has increased accordingly. What hasn't increased accordingly is the revenue that should be going into building roadways and other infrastructure. Since gasoline taxes are typically fixed amounts, rather than percentages of the price for a gallon of gasoline, the government has been collecting pennies when it needs to be collecting dollars. Revenues that used to be adequate for rebuilding and building roadways are now mere percentages of the amounts that are really needed to keep up and try to get ahead of our needs.
So, to be truthful here, I believe it is time to seriously consider raising the gasoline taxes in this country. Perhaps make them a percentage of the cost for a gallon of gasoline, or, maybe not, since the price of gasoline fluctuates too much. But, most certainly we need to move from the current point (which, if I recall correctly was somewhere around $0.35 a gallon) to one where we are collecting about 4 times that amount, if not more. Enough so that we can collect the money we need to sink back into building roads that will last much longer, and into repairing the roadways that we have so that they will last much longer.
I'm sure I'd hate to be paying these increased gasoline taxes, but the alternative is to continue riding on roadways that are getting more unsafe by the minute. And of course, if the gasoline taxes are raised, perhaps I'll be pushed into buying a vehicle that is much more energy efficient and that will have the side effect of helping to reduce this nation's dependence upon foreign oil for our driving needs. I'd like nothing better than to leave that many more barrels of oil under the ground in the middle-east while the 'death to America' crowd cries when the great Satan stops buying all of their oil.
