The Highway Trust Fund is in financial trouble, and the best way out of that trouble is to raise the federal gasoline tax by 65 percent and the diesel tax by 49 percent, says Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

He and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have introduced a bill to do just that. The highway fund is slated to run out of money in August, and they seek a 12 cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax, now 18.4 cents, and the same for the diesel tax, now 24.4 cents.

Corker and Murphy note that the federal Highway Trust Fund provides more than half of the country's spending on transportation projects and will begin to run dry in July, likely halting the construction of any new transportation projects without action from Congress.

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"Every so often we go through this charade that we're going through this month, where we'll steal money from future generations to make it [the trust fund] whole," Corker tells CNBC.

"Congress will throw kids under the bus to pay for this."

Congress hasn't lifted the gasoline tax since 1993. "Its purchasing power today is 63 percent of what it was," Corker argues.

The Senators also propose indexing the gas tax to inflation, using the Consumer Price Index.

In order to offset the increase in the gas tax, Corker and Murphy propose providing net tax relief for American families and businesses, such as permanently extending some of the tax provisions in the "tax extenders" bill that already have broad, bipartisan support; or another bipartisan proposal to reduce taxes by at least the amount of revenue raised from the gas tax during the next decade.

He's under no illusion that his bill will be passed, given the unpopularity of gas taxes, particularly in an election year. "I know that Congress is going to do the non-courageous thing over the next 30 days. It's really disappointing to see," Corker states.

Regular gasoline prices now average $3.68 a gallon nationally, up from $3.67 a week ago, $3.66 a month ago and $3.55 a year ago, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

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• Sens. Corker, Murphy Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax