USA Today – Phase out federal gas tax: Opposing view

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David McIntosh 6:03 p.m. EDT July 23, 2015

Instead of charging motorists more to feed a broken system, let’s fix the system.

Raising the gas tax to prop up the Highway Trust Fund is like pumping gas into a junkyard car. For every $1 of gas tax, Washington wastes 20% to 30% in needless federal regulations that jack up highway construction costs.

Here’s a better idea: Instead of charging motorists more to feed a broken system, let’s fix the system. And step one is to push politicians in Washington, D.C., to the side of the highway funding road.

The current federal funding scheme for highways takes your gas tax money to Washington, lops off a big chunk to pay for federal bureaucracy, and then inefficiently redistributes some of those dollars back to the states for roads. The problem is the federal middleman.

Projects handled at the federal level are rife with costly regulations, such as the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 that drives up labor costs. The price tag for highway work is also increased by federal environmental rules and duplicative planning studies.

Every state has its own Department of Transportation that studies, plans and executes the road projects that matter most to that state. Why do they need the waste, inefficiency and redundancy that arise from the federal layer of bureaucracy?

This year, the Highway Trust Fund will spend more than $50 billion, including billions for non-highway projects, and will run at a deficit of more than $10 billion. The primary focus in Congress — as it has been for years — is on finding new ways to fund that deficit, instead of looking for ways to stop the spending that causes the deficit.

Let’s drop this nonsense of raising the gas tax. Congress should leave the money and responsibility for road construction and repairs where they belong — back at the state and local levels. One good proposal to do that already exists; it’s the Transportation Empowerment Act, sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla.

Their legislation would gradually eliminate the federal gas tax, while giving states the accountability and responsibility to identify and undertake highway projects, using infrastructure funds that would be kept at home instead of wasted in Washington.

David McIntosh is president of the Club for Growth.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/07/23/gas-tax-highway-trust-fund-club–growth-editorials-debates/30587867/