Many of America’s roads and bridges have been in poor, if not dangerous condition, for some time, and still Congress has failed to find a sensible solution to pay for their needed maintenance.
The Federal Highway Trust Fund is a major source of money for road and bridge repair, but each year around this time it starts running dry.
Last year, Congress approved a nearly $11 billion package of emergency revenue to fill the gap, finding some of the money through an accounting gimmick called “pension smoothing.”
Never again, vowed U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, a Republican from Wadsworth, who has introduced a bill with bipartisan support that would provide adequate and reliable revenue to the Highway Trust Fund for the next ten years.
His Bridge to Sustainable Infrastructure Act would index the federal gasoline and diesel fuel taxes to inflation to buy enough time for a bipartisan, bicameral commission to come up with a more permanent solution.
The bill is likely to boost the gasoline tax from 18.4 cents per gallon to 18.8 cents per gallon in 2016, or about $2.83 a year for the typical driver, according to Renacci. Diesel fuel would likely increase by about half a cent to 24.9 cents a gallon.
The indexing would satisfy the financial needs of the Highway Trust Fund through the end of 2016, during which time a bipartisan commission made up primarily of U.S. senators and representatives would be tasked with devising a funding plan for at least another three years.
If no plan emerges, gas and diesel fuel taxes would go up enough to fund another three years, which would mean a further estimated 3.5-cent to 4.5-cent bump to the gasoline tax, Renacci said.
If Congress fails to act within those three years, rates would rise again to fund the remaining five years of Renacci’s proposed ten-year plan. His office did not provide an estimate of how much more rates would have to go up, but said the overall plan is similar to a proposal floated last year by U.S. Sens. Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, and Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, to raise the gas tax by 12 cents by 2016, and index it to inflation.
Ideally, Congress would have the courage to find the revenue to fill up the Highway Trust Fund without resorting to a sequester-like Sword of Damocles hanging over its neck, but history tells us the chances of that are slim.
Our editorial board has long supported an increase in the federal gasoline tax. It hasn’t been raised since 1993, and because it’s a set amount, not a percentage tax, it now makes up a considerably smaller portion of the cost of gas than it did 22 years ago.
Tying the Highway Trust Fund to a user fee, such as the gas tax, is appropriate, although it could be augmented by a mileage tax to capture gas-tax revenue lost to the growing number of alternative-fuel vehicles on the road.
President Barack Obama has proposed using a one-time tax on the foreign profits of U.S. companies to help pay for infrastructure repairs, but such a tax should be considered as part of a broader discussion about tax reform, not road funding.
Twenty-two of Renacci’s fellow representatives have signed on as co-sponsors of his bill – fourteen Democrats and eight Republicans, and several Northeast Ohio mayors, including Cleveland’s Frank Jackson, have endorsed it.
Let’s hope that the advocacy of a fiscal conservative like Renacci will finally get Congress to act on a long-term solution to the annual shortfall within the Highway Trust Fund.
It makes sense now. It made sense a decade ago. It will make even more sense the next time a bridge collapses because it didn’t get the maintenance it should have received, but didn’t.
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