Quoted from senders

it's like chasing coupons and store sales....WASTE of time, life is too short to spend it getting a 'deal', unless it's one's hobby....

Quoted from Libertarian4life

Gas is currently $1.49 in Oklahoma City.

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America is the world's biggest oil consumer and its gasoline taxes are lower than most nations.
Story highlights
Shin-pei Tsay and Deborah Gordon: Infrastructure suffers from congressional inaction
Gas tax funds range of economy-bolstering transportation projects, they say
The gas tax is a good way to invest in America, they say
A perpetual deadlock in Congress has resulted in eight extensions of the national transportation bill, causing roads to crumble, bridges to fall, and transit to break down.

Come March 2012, politicians will once again enter into a political debate about funding American mobility. Without a fiscal safety net in place, the Highway Trust Fund will go broke.

The Republican majority in Congress won't permit the transfer of federal funds from its general spending account to bolster the Highway Trust Fund. And despite the rationality of a user-fee system, neither party will lead the charge to raise the gasoline tax. Few taxes provoke more fury than those at the fuel pump and 2012 is an election year.

In reality, cutting the gas tax exacts a steep cost on the entire economy. The gas tax funds a broad range of economy-bolstering transportation projects across the country and it is already too low to meet current (and future) infrastructure needs. It's time to debunk the myths surrounding the maligned gas tax.

1. Americans already pay too much in gas taxes. Not even close.

Deborah Gordon
Deborah Gordon
America actually taxes gasoline less than most other nations. Only two countries—Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—charge lower gas taxes than the U.S. and both are net global oil suppliers, not consumers. The U.S. is the world's largest oil consumer. By under-taxing gasoline -- and thus under-pricing gasoline -- the United States encourages over-dependency. Furthermore, the federal gas tax does not even come close to covering the wide array of external social costs of driving cars and trucks.

2. Gas taxes rise every year. Quite the opposite.

The federal gas tax has remained unchanged at 18.4 cents for a gallon of gasoline (and 24.4 cents for diesel) for nearly two decades. It is not indexed to the price of crude oil or inflation, so Americans pay a fixed amount whether oil prices are high or low. Ironically, given today's debate, the last time the gas tax was raised in 1993 was for deficit reduction purposes. Taking inflation into account, the gas tax has eroded to only 11 cents today. This has seriously diminished the ability to pay for infrastructure, with a purchasing power of 45 cents in gas taxes for every dollar in national highway construction costs. This means that only one-half of the transportation investments made since 1993 could be afforded today, even though GDP has grown 55% and demands (vehicle miles traveled) have grown 29%.

3. Gas taxes are unnecessary because the transportation system is paid for in other ways. Not so fast.

America's transportation system is going broke. Revenue for the Highway Trust Fund is derived almost entirely from federal gas taxes and distributed to all 50 states. It covers nearly 80% of the capital costs of federally-funded transportation projects, with states carrying the remainder. From 2008 to 2010, Congress transferred $34.5 billion from general fund revenues to make up the funding shortfall. This stopgap measure was necessary to continue projects that are already in the works. Moreover, deferred maintenance—the failure to care for existing roads and bridges—combined with lost productivity are estimated to add more than $100 billion to the national deficit annually.

Shin-pei Tsay
Shin-pei Tsay
Over time, technology will help expand mobility options and improve system efficiency. This includes the ability to track real-time data and charge for system use and facilitate trip decision-making through virtual communications -- social networking, skype, real-time ride-sharing, and on-line meetings.

Will pay-per-mile road taxes buzzkill the great American road trip?

These 21st-century interactions will bolster economic productivity and competitiveness. But they will take time to mature and, in the near-term, will not obviate the need for travel. Moreover, a dedicated source of revenues, such as gas taxes or other user-based fees, will remain critical to fund and facilitate the transition to technology-oriented transportation solutions.

4. Transportation taxes are detrimental to American competitiveness. Wrong.

The reverse is true when it comes to gas taxes. Investing in transportation facilitates reinvestment in America that is vital to economic growth. The U.S., once No. 1 in the world for its infrastructure, has fallen to 15th. China and India are cruising ahead with transportation infrastructure investments each at 9% of GDP compared to 2% in the U.S. This lackluster level of investment prevails despite well-documented needs—aging infrastructure, growing population, and shifting demographics. An upgraded, well-maintained, operationally-efficient transportation system, on the other hand, offers a significant competitive edge. Plus, the gas tax spreads the burden over hundreds of millions of system beneficiaries.

Beyond system efficiency gains, vehicles themselves are becoming more fuel-efficient and less wasteful. A proposal to double car- and SUV-fuel economy standards by 2025, while highly beneficial in terms of energy will translate into lower gas tax expenditures by higher-mpg cars. The rational way to deal with this is to increase gas taxes slightly over time to account for the fiscal impacts that cleaner, more efficient cars have on transportation infrastructure investments.Will

5. Gas taxes make an already volatile gasoline market even worse. Partial thinking.

Domestic gas prices are largely influenced by world oil markets. With transportation accounting for about 70% of U.S. oil consumption and record oil-company profits reached when world oil prices go up, it's only fair that oil companies share the cost of providing transportation infrastructure. Structuring an oil fee assessed on producers and a variable gas tax paid by consumers can further stabilize the price at the pump. When oil prices go up, the retail gas tax can be abated. The oil security fee will make up for the revenue gap. When oil prices go down, the gas tax can be slowly reinstated. There isn't much that can be done about external events that affect global oil price volatility, but gas taxes can be designed to better manage abrupt price swings domestically.

In short, the transportation system is a critical component of America's economy. The United States cannot be a superpower if it starves public investment in infrastructure. Taxes tend to be more politically acceptable when people understand how funds provide benefits. And nobody understands better than travelers that the nation's infrastructure needs serious improvements. It's time to face the fact: The gas tax is a good way to invest in America.

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The Gas Tax Is Running on Empty

By Matthew Philips   July 17, 2014
    
This summer, Congress will probably do what it does best: narrowly avert disaster by passing a quick fix to a big, long-term problem. This time the issue isn’t raising the debt ceiling or funding a budget. It’s keeping the country’s Highway Trust Fund from going bust. By early August the account will be so low on funds that the Department of Transportation will have to start cutting back on the billions of dollars it gives states for road and bridge construction projects. By the end of the month, the balance will be zero.



Although the problem has been looming for months, Congress waited until the last minute to start working on a solution. On July 15 the House passed a bill to rescue the fund by tapping tax receipts from corporate pension plans and diverting money meant to fix leaky underground storage tanks at old gas stations. The Senate is set to vote on the bill later this month. The stopgap measure would raise about $11 billion, or enough to last through May. Over the next decade the fund has a projected shortfall of $170 billion. The White House is pushing a plan that would generate four years of highway funds in part by closing some corporate tax loopholes. Republicans strongly oppose the idea.

Raising the federal gasoline tax, which provides the bulk of federal highway revenue, would seem to be the obvious solution. First passed in 1956 to pay for the more than 40,000 miles of road in the Interstate Highway System, it’s been stuck at 18.4¢ a gallon since 1993—the longest it’s ever gone without an increase. As a result, revenue from the gas tax has remained almost unchanged. In the Senate, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy have co-sponsored a bill to raise the national gas tax by 12¢ over the next two years and then index it to inflation—a plan that might prevent Congress from having to vote on raising it ever again.

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The problem? Even that approach wouldn’t permanently fix the Highway Trust Fund shortfall. In the past 15 years, federal highway spending has increased from $33 billion a year to $53 billion. The sharp increase in costs is driven in part by the deterioration of the federal highway system, which was mostly completed by the early 1980s. “Most of that pavement was intended to last 50 years, and that was 50 years ago,” says Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation. Last year, Poole estimated what it would cost to rebuild crumbling interstates and widen congested stretches. The number he came up with: $983 billion. “There’s basically zero chance of that being paid for,” says Poole.

Even if it were raised, the gas tax will never be the source of cash it once was. Americans are driving fewer miles and doing so in increasingly fuel-efficient cars. Less gas consumption means less gas-tax revenue. With cities growing faster than suburbs and federal fuel standards set to rise more than 40 percent by 2020, revenue from the tax will continue to decline. “It’s time to let go of the gas tax” as the main source of funding, says Susanne Trimbath, an economist and corporate consultant on transportation and infrastructure issues.

One idea is to end the federal government’s role in funding highway construction and give authority back to the states, which, along with cities, generally cover about 75 percent of road and bridge spending in the U.S. That’s what the Tea Party wants. In the House, Georgia Republican Tom Graves has sponsored a bill to lower the federal gas tax to 3.7¢ and transfer almost all funding authority to states over five years. Utah Republican Mike Lee has authored a companion bill in the Senate. States are already increasing their transportation budgets. Since 2013 lawmakers in a handful of states—including Maryland, Vermont, and Wyoming—have raised their state gasoline taxes. Virginia eliminated its gas tax and replaced it with a higher sales tax.

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Other states have considered taking another approach to handling the paradox of the gas tax: Rather than taxing the fuel people buy, transportation economists advocate taxing drivers based on the miles they travel. That would more accurately account for drivers’ use of the roads and charge them the same whether they’re in a Prius or a Ford F-150. This approach is gaining traction in the West, where an 11-state consortium has pledged to study a mileage-based road tax.