The Virginian-Pilot
© May 3, 2014
If you want a measure of how ineffective and spineless our elected officials are, you don't have to look any further than the gas tax. It's a pure user tax that levies proportionally according to use and encourages conservation and new technologies. Our roads and bridges are in disrepair in part because elected officials haven't raised the federal gas tax since 1993. A first-class postage stamp cost 29 cents in 1993 and 49 cents today. If you apply this rate of inflation to the federal gas tax, it should be 31.1 cents, or 12.7 cents more.
Only four states have lower gas taxes than Virginia. Adding 12.7 cents to a gallon of gas averaging $3.47 in Hampton Roads would represent just a 3.7 percent increase in the price. This increase would hurt for about a week, versus President Barack Obama's recent suggestion of allowing states to toll the interstate highway system. A gas tax increase doesn't require any bureaucracy, but politicians love bureaucracy and think the New Jersey Turnpike model is by far the better solution.
Why can't our politicians make a single logical decision? Fixing the deficient bridges across the United States would cost just $76 billion. Why not create jobs fixing roads and bridges?
David Beemer
Virginia Beach
© May 3, 2014
Tax the Gas More
If you want a measure of how ineffective and spineless our elected officials are, you don't have to look any further than the gas tax. It's a pure user tax that levies proportionally according to use and encourages conservation and new technologies. Our roads and bridges are in disrepair in part because elected officials haven't raised the federal gas tax since 1993. A first-class postage stamp cost 29 cents in 1993 and 49 cents today. If you apply this rate of inflation to the federal gas tax, it should be 31.1 cents, or 12.7 cents more.
Only four states have lower gas taxes than Virginia. Adding 12.7 cents to a gallon of gas averaging $3.47 in Hampton Roads would represent just a 3.7 percent increase in the price. This increase would hurt for about a week, versus President Barack Obama's recent suggestion of allowing states to toll the interstate highway system. A gas tax increase doesn't require any bureaucracy, but politicians love bureaucracy and think the New Jersey Turnpike model is by far the better solution.
Why can't our politicians make a single logical decision? Fixing the deficient bridges across the United States would cost just $76 billion. Why not create jobs fixing roads and bridges?
David Beemer
Virginia Beach
