[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13011-13012]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       RAISE THE GAS TAX ALREADY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, for the last 3 years, I have been coming 
to the floor, arguing against the folly of our attempting to pay for 
2015 infrastructure with 1993 dollars.
  We haven't adjusted the gas tax since 1993, and that is why we 
haven't given the American people a 6-year, robust reauthorization of 
the surface transportation system since 1998.
  I find myself today in complete agreement with a column by James 
Surowiecki in the current issue of The New Yorker. It is entitled 
``Raise the Gas Tax Already.''
  He talks about how what is going on in the other body might be 
perceived as progress, might be a good thing, ```real progress,' except 
for one thing: their complicated, jury-rigged plan is only necessary 
because of the continued refusal by Congress to embrace the obvious, 
economically sensible solution to highway funding, namely raising the 
gas tax. The federal gas tax is, as it should be, a key source of 
funding for highway spending.'' Locked currently at 18.4 cents:
  ``The problem is that the funding mechanisms the plan relies on are 
as gimmicky and haphazard as ever. The bill would raise money by, among 
other things, lowering the dividend rate paid to banks in the Federal 
Reserve system, raising certain customs fees, increasing collection 
rates on unpaid taxes, and selling off a hundred and one million 
barrels of oil from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.''
  ``If you're going to have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, you should 
probably only sell oil from it for strategic reasons, not just because 
you want to raise some cash.''
  ``And, from an economic perspective, paying for operating expenses by 
selling off assets is not a good way to manage your money.''
  ``What's especially infuriating about the bill is that we already 
have, in the gas tax, an ideal tool for raising money to pay for 
highway repairs. It's a user tax: if you don't drive, you don't pay it, 
and if you drive less it costs you less.''
  ``That's why even conservative economists, like Gregory Mankiw . . . 
have been ardent advocates of gasoline taxes.''
  ``Indeed, the refusal of Congress to raise the gas tax is the 
ultimate expression of how reflexive and irrational the resistance to 
taxes has become. Opposition to higher income taxes has some 
theoretical justification: higher marginal rates discourage people from 
working more and investing. Seen in

[[Page 13012]]

one light, they're a penalty for success. But no such argument exists 
against the gas tax: all it does, in essence, is ask drivers to pay for 
the roads they use. It's not even fair to say that keeping this tax at 
its current level is a check on big government, since most federal 
highway spending now goes toward rebuilding and repairing roads--
maintenance that even conservatives recognize we must do.
  ``Highway revenue has to be raised somehow. Congress should show some 
political spine, discard the Rube Goldberg funding schemes, and stop 
treating all taxes as bad ones.''
  I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. Indeed, we have seen six 
Republican States already this year show some political spine. They 
have raised the gas tax in Idaho, Utah, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, 
and Georgia.
  It is time for us to assume our responsibilities, to rebuild and 
renew America, that used to have the finest infrastructure in the 
world, but now is locked into a downward spiral.
  Renewing and rebuilding America, giving a 6-year, robust 
reauthorization bill will put hundreds of thousands of Americans to 
work in a matter of months all across the country, and it will make all 
our families safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

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