Raise The Gas Tax 1% Year After Year For 25 Years
[Note: I didn't realize the gas tax mentioned in the WaPo article was the federal gas tax only -- the states tack on their own percentages, raising the average total tax to about 50 cents per gallon.]
We should peg the gas tax to inflation and then raise the tax rate by 1% every year for the next 25 years.
We’ll revisit it then. A WaPo article reminded me of the need for a real gas tax.
The article says 18.5 cents per gallon of gas is tax money - and it’s been that way, not adjusted for inflation - for 15 years. That rate now represents about 10%, give or take, of the cost of a gallon of gas (~ $2.00 right now). Because of inflation, we’re losing more and more of that tax revenue every year - that might help explain why bridges are falling down.
So, first 100 days in office, peg the gas tax to inflation, set it to 10%, and make it go up 1% per year for the next 25 years. After 25 years we’ll be at a 35% gas tax. That’s not too shabby.
By then we’ll have already seen substantial gains made in the electrification of death monsters, some better urban planning, and dramatically-improved pedestrian and cycling conditions, but this drastic gas tax measure is still needed. The 1% increases will give the economy time to adjust.
After 10 years of tax increases (and repaired infrastructure) we start diverting half of the yearly tax increase to walk and bike infrastructure, and the other half to mass transit.
OK, it’s a pipe dream, but still - it needs to happen.
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December 2nd, 2008 at 10:27 am
From 1993 to 2000, the UK had a “fuel price escalator” which was much the same idea as you’re putting forward.
After a few years there was a protest and it failed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_Price_Escalator
Overlapping with this from 1996, the UK also had “national cycling strategy” which had the aim of quadrupling the number of cycling trips by 2012. This was abandoned a few years ago after cycle usage in the UK had dropped rather than risen.
The problem, as ever, is that it’s just hot air. If a useful percentage of what was raised from the escalator had been put into genuinely good cycling infrastructure it may have made a difference.
It might also have lead to the public being more accepting of higher fuel prices than if they believed they had no choice but to drive.