Posted on 02/15/2014 3:05:58 PM PST by ilovesarah2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. business and labor leaders urged Congress on Wednesday to raise the federal gasoline tax to prevent a fund that pays for road and bridge projects from running out of money as early as September.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing that allowing the Highway Trust Fund to run dry would slow road building and other infrastructure projects and hurt the U.S. economy.
"These investments not only create jobs but spur economic growth, ensure our country's long-term economic global competitiveness and improve the quality of life of our citizens," said Trumka, who heads the largest U.S. labor organization.
The Transportation Department estimates that the Highway Trust Fund, which relies on an 18.4 cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and 24.4 cents-a-gallon tax on diesel, could run out of money as early as September. The taxes were last raised in 1993.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ignoring Taxed Enough Already at their own peril.
And if they do, it goes into the pockets of a bunch of union thugs, then back to the Democrat Party!
Idiots!
I thought that constitutionally indefensible federal stimulus funds were supposed to take care of things like this.
Winner of the follow the money contest.
Motives, Motives.
Interesting. I wonder how much of that fund was used to build bike paths?
The health of the American economy should not depend on a bunch of union thugs stealing money out of the hardworking taxpayers’ pockets to build more roads. Isn’t all of that asphalt and vehicles driving on it a cause of global warming? Little Dick Trumka needs to go to jail for all of the money he and his kneecap busters are stealing from the pockets of hardworking Americans. What a punk.
Just where the hell do these A-holes think we’re supposed to get this money for the extra Gas Taxes?Obama has already destroyed the economy.Raised electrical rates skyhigh.
Now they want to kill the working man by raising his fuel taxes on the vehicle that takes him to work.These Statest thugs need to go.
I am all for it, but only if they put the money in a lock box. /s off
It’s the Chamber of one world CORPORATISTS now....they see America as a cash cow
President George H. W. Bush would make history in two ways in 1990: he would abandon his “no new taxes” pledge and he would designate a portion of the gas tax to be used for something other than roads. As part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA 1990), the gas tax was increased by another five cents, bringing the total to 14 cents per gallon. Within a ten year span, the gas tax had increased, under Presidents Reagan and Bush by ten cents per gallon, a 350% increase.
The gas tax was also no longer a dedicated tax. The additional revenue was no longer going to highways and roads projects. Half of the increase in the gas tax under OBRA was earmarked for deficit reduction, a key worry in the 1990s.
1993 would bring another Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA 93), another President (Bill Clinton) and yet another increase in the gas tax. The gas tax was further increased by 4.3 cents with all of the increase targeted to reducing the federal deficit. Four years later, as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, President Clinton would reverse course, earmarking the gas tax increase back to the Highway Trust Fund. That same year, the .1 increase to help pay for leaking underground storage tanks which had been allowed to expire was reinstated.
Over the years, the tax has looked like this (IRS report downloads as a pdf):
Fuel increases will increase costs to small businesses. How do small business pass on these increased costs? WTF, is this moron talking about.
Probably very little. It’s not transit or bike paths that is the problem, as much as it is under-table-graft and other projects that have nothing to do with transportation whatsoever.
Fascism, crony-capitalism — # ‘em.
Get fracking on Federal Lands, offshore drilling, pipeline freedom, etc. online, reduce Fed spending, control the borders and we’ll talk.
Chamber of Commerce even local would rent out their mothers for one more dime of anticipated income.
Keep bleeding the sheep.
Something like 30% is skimmed off the top before they even get around to wasting money on bike paths.
How about defunding EPA to get ethanol out of gasoline?
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