My point is that services don't come from thin air. There may have been things besides the roads that may need to get funded every year and not have enough surp

My point is that services don't come from thin air. There may have been things besides the roads that may need to get funded every year and not have enough surplus to cover the roads. You may even have priorities that are important enough that even if running them was a inefficient, you may need to fund them anyway while you try and improve efficiency. Introducing a tax so that you could finally fund a project is not at face value a bad idea. I am not familiar with this particular instance. But the story about Clinton as it stands is not really relevant. Much like this sub-thread.