Compare what the US pays for a gas tax compared to the rest of the world (graph is Canadian cents per liter).
Now ask yourself this question - Should we spend our limited tax dollars (and right of way) intended for free roads, on toll roads? The answer is simple when you compare the costs.
Assuming your vehicle gets 20 miles per gallon, and the increase in indexed gas tax was 10 cents a gallon, you would spend less than .5 cent a mile for an indexed gas tax. Compare that to the 15 cent a mile toll road that would cost 30 times the indexed gas tax per mile. A 20 cents a mile toll would cost 40 times the indexed gas tax, and so on.
Nearly everything we purchase has an indexed tax - a fair form of taxation.
Some folks refuse the indexed gas tax as well as tolls. In my opinion, if you don't recognize the political fight is the toll tax or indexed gas tax you are not being realistic or reasonable. If you don't have a politically viable solution to fight for, you are wasting your time - spinning your wheels - and destined to fail.
Based on the recent Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) report, indexing the gas tax and placing the incremental revenue in the mobility fund to pay off bonds allows us to build the roads we need now, without more toll roads.
4/03/2007
Indexing Gas Tax Costs 30 Times Less Than Tolls
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3 comments:
While I do not disagree with the idea of indexing fuel taxes, I disagree with your comparison. It does not show the whole picture.
The 15 cents per mile would be paid ONLY by the users of this facility, while the 0.5 cents per mile would be paid by all of us drivers in Texas.
So I ask myself: why should I be taxed more for a highway that I will never likely use? Shouldn't ONLY the users and thus beneficiaries of this facility pay for it?
I WAS WAITING FOR THAT ONE!
Compare apples with apples (driving toll or free expressways)
And, these are roads intended to be expressways - if anyone really wants to go anywhere, they will be forced to pay the freeway toll tax.
As congestion gets worse on frontage roads with stop lights, (with NO congestion solution for higher toll tax profits) driving a frontage road will not be a reasonable option for anyone.
Should you be taxed for highways that you will likely use? Gas taxes have not been raised in years and years.
Paying an increased gas tax puts revenue into a transportation system that is audited and tracked and publicly budgeted by the State, rather than shipping mostly-gouge toll profits off to Spain, or Governor Perry's buddies.
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