Senators Want Gas Tax Hike to Pay for Roads
The Hill reports:
A bipartisan pair of senators has urged President Obama’s debt commission to consider raising the gas tax to pay for infrastructure projects.
Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) have written to the chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform advocating for a 25-cent per gallon tax increase.
“We suggest that the commission include an increase in the federal tax on gasoline and diesel as part of your report to the president, ” they wrote. “We suggest that the taxes be increased by one cent per month for 25 months — a total of 25 cents over a three-year period.”
The lawmakers suggest that 10 cents of the tax increase should go to deficit reduction and 15 cents should go to funding transportation infrastructure improvements.
It is one of many tax increases Congress is likely to consider in the months ahead as it wrestles with finding ways to reduce the nation’s $1.5 trillion budget deficit.
The proposal, however, seems likely to face staunch opposition from Republicans, many of whom ran on a firm anti-tax increase pledge. It is notable that Voinvoich, the GOP voice on the letter, is retiring at the end of this Congress.
He and Carper argue that the nation’s infrastructure system is beginning to crumble.
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