We raise ~36 Billion dollars in fuel taxes per annum. That's why no one complains about the Interstate Highway System, it pays for itself.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2016/f...
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2016/f...
> Highways: The FAST Act provides $45.3 billion for highway and bridge improvements in FY 2019 (the fiscal year from Oct. 1, 2018 through Sept. 30, 2019) and grows this amount to $46.4 billion by FY 2020. Most federal highway investment is used to upgrade and maintain the nation’s core highways, including the Interstate Highway System, and to repair and replace deficient bridges.
> An additional $3.4 billion was provided for highway and bridge investments as part of the final FY 2019 spending bills signed into law Feb. 15, 2019.
> Since 2008, revenues to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) have been insufficient to fully support the level of federal highway and transit investment authorized by Congress. Prior to enactment of the FAST Act, the annual investment gap was nearly $15 billion. Congress has not increased the federal motor fuels tax since 1993, but federal highway and public transportation spending has grown substantially over the last 26 years. It should surprise no one that holding the trust fund’s inflow of revenues constant while attempting to address the nation’s growing transportation needs would lead to an unsustainable situation.
It is quite clear that even just the Interstates do not "pay for themselves." There's also the issues with the fuel taxes, namely that motorists are not necessarily the only ones paying those taxes, and in addition to the depreciating value from a flat fee not tracking inflation, the value of the tax is continuing to diminish as some motorists switch to alternative fuels and others are driving ever more efficient vehicles.
I do see their balances coming up positive though, thanks to a very massive balance transfer from the General Fund per the FAST act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/22), straight from US taxpayers' wallets.
I also see no mention to climate impact anywhere. $36 billion dollars of gas taxes at 18.3 cents per gallon suggests sales of nearly 200 billion gallons of gasoline were burned. That's a hell of a lot of climate damage that everyone's being forced to pay for.
So, you were saying about us not subsidizing the IHS?
So the system is broken, but it has a simple fix, just raise the gas tax. We haven't done that since 1993 and it isn't indexed to inflation. This is something that should have been fixed years ago, but alas I don't control congress.
If you want to go even further and discuss the environmental impact, again the solution is more taxes.
Given the latency on legislatively fixing things in the USA these days, any work at fixing stuff now should probably include the likelihood of a major shift to non-gas vehicles in the next couple decades.
It's hard to make an argument that rail is cheaper than driving without getting into a lot of mental gymnastics, and I really like taking the train when able.
Once they become a thing, the price of an autonomous taxi between the cities should approach the real amortized cost of road travel.
Namely, as fuel efficiency increases and some drivers switch to alternative fuels, people will need less gas for the same amount of driving.