Posted on 01/25/2015 11:12:00 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The president was a conservative's conservative. He had campaigned on reducing taxes and made it his legacy. But when a gas tax increase was proposed, it was a different story. In his weekly radio address, he said, "We simply cannot allow this magnificent (highway) system to deteriorate beyond repair."
That was 1982. The president was Ronald Reagan.
Unfortunately, the disrepair Reagan feared has come to pass. The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents hasn't been raised since 1993, and the Highway Trust Fund is severely underfunded. A 10- to 15-cent a gallon increase would provide enough money to meet the Highway Trust fund needs for the next 10 years.
It deserves bipartisan support.
The American Society of Civil Engineering gave the nation's highways a grade of D in 2013. Californians would give them an F.
Call it a user fee, if we must, to appease the anti-tax crusaders. Reagan did. Several Republican governors are justifying state gas tax increases that way.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, told the Silicon Valley Leadership Group last year that the gas tax was problematic because vehicles are using less gasoline. It's a problem in the long run, for sure. But something has to happen now. As highways and bridges deteriorate, the cost of repair rises exponentially.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports a gas tax increase. The largely Republican organization knows how important safe and functional transportation is to the country's economic health. It needs to convince Congress. Advertisement
Sen. John Thune, R-N.D., the third-ranking Senate Republican, is on board. So is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
Modernizing infrastructure should be a conservative goal because of the high costs that crumbling roads place on businesses and drivers.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
One would think that if our bright and valuable functionaries of government would spend half as much time on their jobs we put them there for as they do in creating and inventing new ways to tax us without blame to them, we’d all be better off.
Correct. There is a level of fixed expense that consumes a lot of this tax revenue. The excess has been squandered on cockamamie green energy and light rail schemes as well as pork barrel projects.
That was then, this is now. Just because a past president advocated a certain action to solve a perceived problem in the now distant past, doesn’t mean President B should take the same action in the present. Moreover, this fuzzy reasoning is being used along with an assertion that the past problem still exists!
Obama has been shoveling tax money into the bonfire for 6 years on the excuse that “we need to fix roads and bridges”. When does it end?
Already we've had one state (Virginia) take it upon itself to revamp its state fuel tax system. From what I've read, this has enabled it to do a lot of transportation projects on its own. This is not necessarily a good thing when you're dealing with transportation assets of national importance.
A guess is about 25 percent of highway traffic is on behalf city slicker Democrats that don't own automobiles. While mass transit is a huge money loser, energy waster, and environmental disaster, it does help keep libtards in their concentration camps and not spoiling the countryside. Dealing with pot holes is preferable to pot heads.
Many conservatives buy off road capable vehicles but don't drive them off the government roads much. Possibly instead of better roads we should put the money into wing technology so automobiles can glide over the occasional 30 foot pot hole.
With all the “shovel ready” work done during the Stimulus the highways should be in tip top shape. They did use the money like they said they would, right?
The government collects several trillion dollars a year,that’s more than enough,NO MORE money
Cut off EBT from the morbidly obese. As they lose weight they will cause less wear and tear on our infrastructure.
The Contra Costa Times is one of those "alternative" rags. Everyone one of them voted for 0bama. That's why the article didn't bring up the "Stimulus" that was supposed to fix the infrastructure, but instead went to the unions.
5.56mm
That is the question; with all the taxes that have been collected so far for highways and bridges they should all be paved with gold.
DUMBO needs $$ for his free education and healthcare.
I thought that was done at the point of retail sale to the end users. We still import some gasoline and gasoline blending products that would not enter a refinery.
Gas taxes usually collected at point of bulk distribution, such as when loaded from storage tank/pipeline onto a truck for delivery to retailer.
Wasn’t Reagan’s idea. The Dem Congress did it and Reagan, being a bi-partisan man, signed it as a compromise.
Author makes it sound like Reagan ran on the issue.
This article lies at it onset so you can be assured that the rest is probably lies as well.
At the wholesale distribution point then, let's not split hairs. On state and local sales tax, they are collected at the pump but not the fed tax.
What is your proposal to fix the interstate highway system?
“We simply cannot allow this magnificent (highway) system to deteriorate beyond repair.” ....
Then stop all those damn “free sh&t” to the “gimmedats”, free loaders and illegals. Our roads could be paved with gold with the amount of dollars wasted on those social programs. What do those social programs give us in return? More reproduction by those who receive the “free sh&t” and thus the cycle continues.
They, the interstates, are mainly decrepit in urban areas. The municipalities and states where they are should use their damned state gas tax money to fix them.
I further “propose” to stop wasting federal gas taxes on BS studies, programs and everything not related to actual repairs - that includes the 20% of funding it uses to support subsidized mass transit where they pander to riders whose only merit is that they ‘vote’.
Remember the $600 billion stimulus that was supposed to take care of all that?
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