A Southern Republican and a New England Democrat say they’re tired of short-term patches for the federal transportation system and the unwillingness of Congress to find a solution for the depleted Highway Trust Fund, so they’re pursuing the obvious solution: a substantial increase in the tax on gas and diesel at the pump.
The proposal by Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Chris Murphy of Connecticut would raise the fuel tax six cents a year over two years, then index the tax to inflation. The federal fuel tax has not been raised since 1993, and since then the revenue it generates has lost nearly half its buying power.
“For too long, Congress has shied away from taking serious action to update our country’s aging infrastructure,” says Murphy. “We’re currently facing a transportation crisis that will only get worse if we don’t take bold action to fund the Highway Trust Fund. I know raising the gas tax isn’t an easy choice, but we’re not elected to make easy decisions – we’re elected to make the hard ones.”
To offset the revenue raised from increasing the fuel tax, Murphy and Corker propose providing net tax relief for American families and businesses. An example would be extending some of the tax provisions in the “tax extenders” bill that already have broad, bipartisan support, creating potentially billions of dollars in permanent tax relief over the next 10 years alone, the senators suggest.
“Growing up in Tennessee as a conservative, I learned that if something was important enough to have, it was important enough to pay for,” says Corker. “In Washington, far too often, we huff and puff about paying for proposals that are unpopular, yet throw future generations under the bus when public pressure mounts on popular proposals that have broad support. Congress should be embarrassed that it has played chicken with the Highway Trust Fund and allowed it to become one of the largest budgeting failures in the federal government.”
A number of business, labor and construction groups have already lined up in support of the Murphy-Corker proposal.
American Trucking Associations officials praised the plan because it preserves the “user pays” principle.
