Don’t know how old you are, but here goes.
Gasoline taxes, Federal, state and maybe local were emplaced specifically for road maintenance and repair. The drives thus paid for the “use” and upkeep of roadways built usually by public bonds. And for decades this worked fairly well albeit with the usual graft involved in such civic projects. Those taxes were not part of the general fund.
So the gasoline/diesl already taxes the user based on the drivers usage and fuel consumption. Low mpg vehicles pay the premium for the necessity or need of the high consumption.
The pols are playing three card Monte with the usual semi-literate and disengaged populous. You actually can fool most of the people most of the time, even here on FR.
Have a good evening.
This isn't news to me. The problem we have today is the increasing presence of EV's and hybrids, which decrease fuel usage (and thus, fuel tax payments) without decreasing road wear. Then there's the potential for the large scale adoption of CNG vehicles in the decade ahead. Ultimately, the gasoline tax will have to be reduced or scrapped in exchange for something that doesn't ignore the effect of non-gasoline burning road users.