Gasoline Tax Money Wasted on Unrelated Projects

WASHINGTON – You may think all your gasoline tax money is used for transportation projects. Think again.

Foes of a House Transportation Committee proposal to raise the gasoline tax and index it for inflation have documented the extent to which much of that money is diverted to purposes other than roads or transit.

While some of the other projects might have merit, the issue is: At a time when motorists are told they must pay through the nose at the pump lest our highways fall apart, should not the “trust fund” be spent exclusively on the serious transportation projects for which it is intended?

The Republican Study Committee, a group of House conservatives, says yes. RSC is headed by Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., a former mayor of Charlotte, who understands urban and rural transportation concerns.

“By law,” says RSC, “10% of funds from the Surface Transportation Program are set aside for so-called Transportation Enhancements.”

And what is meant by “enhancements?” Here’s a partial list:

Bicycle and horse trails, streetscape improvements, landscaping and preservation of historic buildings.

“Perhaps most astonishing,” says RSC, “is that since 1998, over $120 million in highway funds have been spent for historic preservation and another $50 million has been spent on transportation museums.”

Then there is the issue of “excessive labor costs.”

An RSC paper cites the following statement by Association of Builders and Contractors:

“By mandating that prevailing wage rates [a euphemism for union scale] be paid on federal and federally assisted projects, the Davis-Bacon Act inflates the cost of construction by an average of 5 to 15 percent, and as much as 38 percent in rural areas. According to the Congressional Budget Office, repeal of Davis-Bacon would save Federal transportation infrastructure programs hundreds of millions of dollars annually,” in fact “over 720 million” each year for highways alone.

Meanwhile, research has shown that in 1982, President Ronald Reagan, in a rare slip from his usual tax-cutting mode, found himself confronting a conservative revolt within his own party on Capitol Hill on the gasoline tax. Democrats, who then ruled the House, were instrumental in rescuing the gasoline tax increase of that year from defeat.

Nonetheless, Tom Daschle, then a U.S. congressman from South Dakota and now Senate Democrat leader, and future vice president Al Gore of Tennessee voted in the House against raising the gasoline tax. All of which adds fuel to suspicions that Democrats may be waiting in the wings to pounce if the GOP rams through “a middle-class tax increase.”

The Bush White House is obviously aware of this potential booby trap and has informed Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., ringleader of the revolt against this year’s proposed gasoline tax boost, that the administration is ready to help her cause in any way it can.

Among Republicans currently in either the House or Senate who opposed the gasoline tax increase back in '82 were Rep. Phil Crane, R-Ill.; Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky.; Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. (then a Democrat); Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho; Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine; and Rep. Jim Leach, R-Ia.

As NewsMax.com has previously noted, the leader of the effort to raise the gasoline tax 5.4 cents a gallon, House Transportation Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, voted no in 1982.

At that time, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., led a 13-day filibuster intended to block the increase. He kept the blocking action going until just two days before Christmas in one of those end-of-the-session logjams.

On Dec. 23, several senators arrived in Washington on military aircraft and were taken to the Capitol for the vote “in police cars with lights flashing and sirens wailing.”

That’s what it took to boost the gasoline tax when the White House was for it. Today’s White House is opposed. On paper, at least, that would seem to make the climb all the more forbidding for the taxers.