Eliminate the Federal Gas Tax

The 18.4 cents a gallon Federal gas tax is perhaps the single worst influence on the development of rational transportation policies in the United States, and it should be eliminated.

For many, even those on the right, those are fighting words. Gas taxes are usually portrayed as “user fees,” and there is no question that there is a legitimate Federal interest in fostering interstate commerce and ensuring a first-rate transportation infrastructure that serves as the backbone of our national economy.

Unfortunately, in today’s political climate gas taxes serve neither as legitimate “user fees” nor do they effectively serve to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the movement of goods, services, and people. In fact, they often do just the opposite.

Everybody by now is familiar with the infamous “earmarks” that plague the appropriations process in Washington. In the latest transportation bill over 6000 earmarks diverted billions of dollars away from investments in basic infrastructure to the preferred projects of powerful Congressmen.

Cont... townhall.com

by David Strom
Tuesday, December 4, 2007