A gas tax has been tossed around quite frequently as a method to both pay for transportation needs and encourage the use of other forms of transportation (e.g. walking, biking …)
This post explains how many Americans may be in favor of a gas tax. The best part of the story is this comment –
Yes, the idea is that the gubb’mint would spend the extra tax money on The Best Alternatives(tm). The theory here is that thousands of years of tradition of government blowing the vast majority of its tax revenues would suddenly be cast off and you could sleep easy knowing that clueless politicians are disbursing your hard-earned dollars better than nobel prize winning energy physicists (or so the government says and wants you to assume).
What he said.
I don’t think a gas tax is necessarily a bad idea. Trusting the government to implement said tax and use it as directed is the problem. Maybe all we have to do is wait for the politicians to not run for reelection, and then they’ll “do the right thing.”
virginiatransportation.blogspot.com has a long thread based on this poll.
not surprisingly the take over there is different.
A gas tax is a very bad idea (in my opinion).
California has a gas tax.. added on to all the other gasoline taxes.. and it’s specifically to pay for transportation infrastructure, however every year that tax fund gets raided (like Social Security with the Federal Government) for whatever else is needed. The gas tax money never gets used for transportation infrastructure.
Now if Governor Kaine would’ve met his promise about giving localities more control over transportation infrastructure issues, like he promised during his campaign… then.. I might.. and that’s a big big might.. be willing to consider it.
Otherwise absolutely not.
That is an interesting discussion as is this discussion at the Commonwealth Iconoclast that clearly lays out the Transportation funding issues. Both are good reading.
The above links aside, when our politicians choose to not police themselves, as described in this article at the Washington Post, how can the people possibly be expected to support any decision our elected “representatives” make?