Question by : Wouldn’t it make more sense to enact a higher tax on gasoline and diesel fuel to pay for our roads and bridges?
I know it sounds crazy because no one wants to pay higher taxes but think of the alternative. Tolls and collapsing bridges are what we have now. I mean look at what they are charging us to use these tunnels and bridges which are falling apart.
[ Google "MTA Bridges and Tunnels Crossing Charges" cause that is another link Yahoo is blocking. BTW its the first link that comes up ]
Plus if you get rid of all tolls with a minor fuel tax everyone who uses the roads will share in its cost and you eliminate the free rider problem. Oh and think of how much money you will save on gas and diesel when you don’t have to wait for 3 hours on line to get through that toll. So in the very end it all balances out.
We could always use private accountants to manage the money. I recommend having at least 3 accountants to prevent fraud.
The truth is that our bridges and roads really are falling apart. You know that is not good for the economy right?
@Deathbound- You don’t live in NYC liar. You think that paying almost 20 dollars one way for a toll is reasonable? lmao
Best answer:
Answer by Shovel Ready
We have too many roads and bridges as it is. Let’s get rid of some of them, lower taxes, and get the government off peoples’ backs.
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They’re repairing roads that were just fine around me because they need to spend all the monies earmarked for this budget year, lest they’ll get less next year.
I don’t use toll roads and there isn’t a bridge with 200 miles of me, so I am against raising the price of gas to pay for these things
Makes sense. But ……. you are talking about our government. The feds would take the money to build NEW roads and not repair the old roads.
Yes it would make sense. As a matter of fact, that’s what the gasoline tax is suppose to be used for, but the government misappropriates that money too. So increasing the tax wont help if its still being misused.
Tolls make more sense than a higher fuel tax. If you toll the road that needs the money you get the funding from the people doing the damage, including out of state drivers. My parents live in New York and the toll lines are not that bad, better than paying more at the pump.
My parents live out here and I come out a couple times a year. It is actually only $ 8 to go over the GW bridge to Manhattan and it is free it get onto Long Island if you take the Queens Bough Bridge. You just have to avoid going over Staten Island, that gets expensive.
LOL at the person saying they don’t have a bridge within 200 miles of them. So what if they live in some isolated desert (and I’ll be honest, that seems unlikely anyway), 99% of America doesn’t.
And Casey, the fact is, revenue from gas is less than 100% of spending on roads even now, when it’s underfunded. Ergo, it’s irrelevant if the money is misappropriated or not, it can’t cover the price.
But yeah, toll systems are inefficient, ineffective, and expensive. But I’m not sure fuel taxes are better, as fuel consumption is not linear with road damage. I believe it’s actually cubed with the weight of a vehicle, that’s more than fuel economy covers.
No actually what should be done is to take the current taxes out of the general fund an put it into a special fund.A fund that can only be accessed to repair roads and bridges!
Republicans would not go for it because it would create a sustainable industry that would be unaffected by the economic environment!
Federal tax rate on a gallon of gas – 18.4 cents
Federal tax rate on a gallon of diesel – 24.4 cents
Depending on where you live there are state taxes too
NY – 69.6 cents for gas and 75.1 for diesel
http://www.gaspricewatch.com/web_gas_taxes.php
Have you ever been to NY? Crappy roads. I don’t think they are using the money for what it is intended for.
If you want solid evidence to the failure of special gas taxes and tolls just google ILLINOIS and read and weep for yourself. The basic idea seems doable but reality is that governments can’t keep their hands off of the revenue so they use it for everything else but what it was meant for. And with special agencies like the EPA and state Depts of Natural Resources so big, over powering and full of mandates the special taxes and tolls would be used to finance these over blown govt. agencies rather than for infrastructure.
spending taxes on roads doesn’t create more jobs……it just gives government construction contractors more job stability……..
I don’t know about where you live, but that’s all they do here. That and put in about a zillion Round a bouts that aren’t needed. Yeah, that’s all we need for them to do is put more tax on gas. Geez!
Nope. It would make more sense to decrease the wasteful spending being thrown around in other areas and us THAT to pay for infrastructure projects. Government has more than enough revenue.
We are such a high-tax society. The government gets everything and do you know who it goes to? Our elected officials- they get kickbacks, they get wonderful pensions and wonderful paychecks.
The average middle class family makes abou $ 40,000 a year roughly. Why should our elected officials get MORE than 4 times that amount when our roads and bridges are hurting?
Anytime you hear our elected officials decreasing pensions- that is not for them- that is for the next set of officials coming into office.
Government already has more than enough revenue- they just are not using it properly.
How about designing and building the roads such that they last.
So is this tax, just for gas sold in and around NYC? If so, sure go for it. It’s not as if gas pricing is not laden with taxes anyway, right….