The Sage Observer

Financing Our Roads and Bridges

          A few days past there was a discussion on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal regarding the deplorable condition of our national infrastructure of roads and bridges, its state of repair, its safety,  and our need to bring it up to date, especially in light of our nation’s high unemployment in this economy and the requisite need to create jobs. As always, the question is how to pay for it.

          Traditionally, these types of expenditures have been paid by fuel taxes; which, essentially, are sales taxes based on usage of the product, differing from a normal sales tax only in that it is calculated on product volume rather than sales dollars. Until now, the fuel tax has been the fairest method of financing the building of our roads and bridges because those who use them pay for them. Those who use them the most, trucking companies for example, pay the most. Technology, however, is changing all this. Vehicles are getting better mileage enabling them to drive more miles while paying less tax so that the taxes are no longer sufficient to cover the expenses and the funds are running out of money.

Of course, this could easily be resolved by raising the tax; but, while this is being argued, the scope of the problem expands. More and more vehicles are coming into use that do not run on fossil fuels. Rather, they are fueled by electric or, currently less popular, hydrogen leading to the suggestion that meters be installed on vehicles and the mileage be taxed. This too has its opponents in that the applicable meters pose a threat to our privacy, enabling us to be tracked.

While all this is being considered, it also comes to mind that technology is being developed (and is just “around the corner”) for driver-less cars; which will obviously increase the cost of the infrastructure and, also,  negate the privacy argument in that our privacy will be affected anyway. As we consider increasing the fuel tax for now, we should consider the future as well so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel down the road; but increase the tax we must, because nothing is free. I submit we should do it soon before the speculators run up the price again.

Ronald Miller

Email me at mtss86@comcast.net