Scott Beyer on Abolishing the Federal Gas Tax

The
notion that U.S. infrastructure is crumbling and underfunded has
been common lately, and more such news came in February, when the
Department of Transportation announced that the Federal
Highway Trust Fund could soon run out. This raised debates about
what to do with the trust’s main funding source, the federal gas
tax. Some legislators have long wanted to raise this tax, and
President Obama recently proposed his own $302 billion
funding plan. But one Congressman, Georgia Republican Tom Graves,
has a better idea: nearly abolish the gas tax altogether.

Last November, writes urban issues expert Scott Beyer, Graves
introduced the Transportation Empowerment Act, which was
cosponsored through Senate legislation by Republican Mike Lee. By
drastically reducing the tax, it would enable states to manage
their own transportation policies, improving a process that has
become massively inefficient under federal oversight.

View this article.