I thought that that was the purpose of all the other taxes - to build and maintain the roads. This purely Dem thinking is one more sign of why we are in dire straits if we don't stamp out the commies (left-wing "liberal" nutcases in the DemocRATic party) in government.
There are a lot of sides to this issue, but it all boils down to money ... how much money the gov't can use to buy votes and social largess.
First, the gas tax was never intended to, and does not, pay for all road construction. Road construction is best viewed as a "capital expense" necessary for the common good. Road repair is another expensive problem that can be solved by less corruption in gov't, but the Dems won't go there. The issue needs to be divided up to new road construction (access), based upon growth, and road maintenance. The Feds are paying for I35, for example, to be rebuilt all through Texas to handle the increased trafic and weight due to NAFTA.
Second, lighter vehicles cause much less damage to roadways than heavy trucks. Lighter vehicles also pay far fewer fuel taxes, compared to SUVs and trucks. Could zero-emission vehicles impact the ability to states to budget for maintenance? Possibly, but road use taxes will appear at the LNG and hydrogen pumps sooner or later. Electric cars will just have a road use tax built into the price of the car.
Does anyone think that the value of less air pollution will exempt these cars from taxes? Hah! Gov't will never give up a revenue stream.
I don't remember the stats, but every truck, local and especially longhaul, pays a huge proportion of road use taxes in comparison to any private vehicle. The biggest problem in road maintenance is not the number of cars, but of overloaded trucks that damage roads not designed for such weights.
The major issue in Oregon is not the amount of road use taxes collected, but the way in which politicians feel they own the money being disbursed.