By Bryan Williams
So where does the rubber meet the (newly constructed) road? For years we have heard successive administrations talk about the need for new investment in our country’s infrastructure, and it’s one issue with some bipartisan consensus. As I have said in previous columns, bi-partisan support is critical to infrastructure spending, and yet here we are in 2021 with no large-scale bill close to passage. The time is ripe to pass a massive infrastructure bill, with as unified a government as President Biden is likely to have in the form of Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and (thinly in) the Senate, at least until next year’s midterms. American taxpayers have become used to coronavirus stimulus packages with the word “trillions” thrown in, so another two or three trillion isn’t a big deal, right?
It isn’t a big deal until the bill comes due, and now a previously untenable form of funding has been floated: a gas tax increase. This is perhaps one of the most (small d) democratic ways to pay for something. Nearly everyone save for folks in New York City, San Francisco, and maybe Washington, D.C. buys gas. It also makes sense that it’s a federal requirement that the gas tax goes to programs connected to it, in the form of paying for nice, new roads and bridges.
As a Republican, I can get behind this. But then the specifics get in the way. I would feel much more comfortable if any monies raised by an increased federal gas tax are spent only on roads, and specifically on roads used by cars and trucks. Not bicycles. Not money-losing mass-transit trains. Roads on which you and I and 95% of Americans drive our privately-owned cars and trucks. Republicans should make sure such a provision is required (if negotiations get that far).
Much has also been said about the dichotomy between gasoline and electric vehicles. Obviously electric vehicle owners don’t pay gas taxes, but they do pay use taxes figured in at the time of sale and annually when they re-register. Again, a provision should be made where EV owners’ user taxes go up too.
Will increased gas taxes be the demise of gas-powered cars? We all know the future is electric (or – at least not with fossil fuel-powered vehicles), but that is still years away. And I mean years. Millions of people still predominantly buy gasoline-powered vehicles and internal combustion engines will continue to dominate new car and truck sales well through the decade. Even with battery technology advancing quickly, a full charge in most state-of-the-art EVs will get you 250 miles, whereas a full tank of dinosaur juice will get you as much as 400-500 miles. Internal combustion-powered vehicle owners should not have to carry the burden of our brave new infrastructure plans.
I’m going to pour some more gasoline on all of this before I close. If Biden and the Democrats think they can pass off social-welfare spending as “infrastructure” paid for by the drivers of America then Biden should grow out his hair and curl it because he’ll be facing a revolt just like King George III.