Trump has big plans for California highway repair, but no plan to pay for it
No federal gasoline tax increase this year. A new Trump administration plan for $810 billion to fix crumbling roads and bridges.
That’s the latest pitch from the White House as it promotes its election-year ideas for helping the nation’s transportation system.
But it’s offering no details yet and no way to pay.
And it turns out that some consumers are going to pay higher taxes this year to get the roads fixed anyway, as 19 states have increased gasoline taxes since January 2019.
The increases are being felt most deeply in western states. California increased its gasoline tax 5.6 cents a gallon July 1. State motorists pay the highest combined federal and state gas taxes in the country. Washington state has the fourth highest taxes.
“States have become more engaged due to lack of leadership coming out of Washington,” said Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which advocates for truckers’ rights..
“In many cases, states are raising taxes to plug the gap in their budgets. If the federal government increased the gas tax it would help reduce this kind of pressure,” said Steve Davis, spokesman for Transportation for America, a nonpartisan group that advocates for safer highways and transit systems.
The average state tax on gasoline this year is 36.1 cents a gallon, according to data compiled by the American Petroleum Institute. Western states, at an average of 50.86 cents, have the highest averages while Southern states have the lowest, 21 cents.
California motorists pay 60.6 cents in taxes and fees, plus another 18.4 cents in federal tax, a total of 79 cents, the highest in the country. Its gasoline excise tax went to 47.3 cents a gallon July 1, 2019. The increase was the latest authorized by 2017 legislation that aims to provide billions to fix the state’s roads and bridges.
Among the projects funded this year in the Sacramento area are some work on the carpool lane extension project on U.S. Highway 50. Also helped by the funding are improvements on Interstate 5 and on 18 major streets in unincorporated areas, including Marconi, Madison, Hazel, Kenneth, Robertson, Watt and California avenues; Elkhorn and Rio Linda boulevards; and Saverien and Ashton drives.
Pennsylvania, at 77.1 cents, and Illinois, at 72.05 cents, have the nation’s next highest gasoline taxes. Then comes Washington state at 67.8 cents, which includes its 49.4 cents a gallon gasoline excise tax.
While there’s no way to know how much states increases would be curbed if federal taxes were higher, if at all, Carl Davis, research director at Washington, D.C., Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, saw two reasons for the state increases.
One is that the cost of asphalt, concrete, machine and labor has gone up. “You can’t charge drivers a flat gas tax rate and expect that to be enough to cover rising costs. The math doesn’t work. That’s why these taxes always have to be updated,” he said.
Second, vehicles are becoming more fuel efficient and more people are driving hybrids or electric cars.
“When cars get better gas mileage that means drivers can travel further before they need to pull over, refuel, and pay any gas tax,” Davis said. “Drivers are creating extra wear and tear on the roads but aren’t chipping in additional (federal) gas tax dollars to cover that expense.”
Washington, D.C., says it wants to help, and the Trump administration is offering a proposal to spend $810 billion over the next 10 years to repair or replace the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges.
But there are no concrete details thus far. And federal lawmakers refuse to raise the federal gasoline tax, which has been 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993. The reason: Politics.
“I think leadership on both sides thinks the other side will use it against them,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, the Oregon Democrat who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee.
The key to an increase would be getting the support of President Donald Trump. “That will give the Republicans cover to support it and then the Democrats would be confident that they weren’t gonna get trashed,” DeFazio said.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is promoting the ambitious highway improvement plan. She called it “historic” when she detailed her budget plans before a House appropriations subcommittee last month.
Chao said the plan would include “significant investments for rebuilding and repairing highways and bridges” by giving states more flexibility to spend and allowing “modern innovative finance tools that will help to get projects moving more quickly.”
Rep. David Price, a North Carolina Democrat who chairs the House panel that writes the transportation spending bill, saw flaws.
“The plan lacks significant details about policy, programs, and most importantly, how all this is going to be paid for,” he said.
The federal highway trust fund is supposed to pay for road and transit projects. Until 2008, the fuel tax as well as other highway revenue sources paid for such projects.
But in the last 12 years, the tax has been unable to cover the costs, so lawmakers have used money from the general budget.
Congress has been considering several alternative funding sources, such as charging motorists by miles driven and imposing fees on electric vehicles, but nothing has gained momentum.
Spencer, from the truckers’ group, figured that there could be an interim increase in the gas tax as lawmakers deliberate over alternatives.
But nothing is afoot, so the states act and Washington lawmakers fume. Said Rep. Norma Torres, D-California, a member of the transportation spending panel: I think the federal government has really left us behind.”
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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