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It's been talked about a lot for a long time. But nothing ever gets pass congress. Obama tried to pass a lot of infrastructure spending as part of the 2008 Sti
by jmedefind 10y ago
It's been talked about a lot for a long time. But nothing ever gets pass congress.
Obama tried to pass a lot of infrastructure spending as part of the 2008 Stimulation package, but a lot didn't make it into the final budget.
Everyone wants it fixed, but no one wants to pay for it.
Many states fund their roads and bridges via a gas tax. But no one wants to raise the price of gas. So nothing gets fixed through that channel either.
It's a real problem in the US and our divisive and nut job "party first" politics.
- vermontdevil 10y agoSome states divert a % of the gas tax to other budget lines instead of transportation infrastructure. Then people want to either raise the tax or resist against it without realizing that 100% of the gas tax should be 100% for what it is originally intended to be. You can find numerous examples by googling Gas Tax Diversions such as this one: https://www.irtba.org/GasTax https://www.irtba.org/GasTax
- stuckagain 10y agoAll states spend much more on roads than they take in on gas taxes, so the issue of whether gas taxes are "diverted" is moot. Every state also "diverts" a huge amount of general revenues to road building and maintenance. To stay with your example of Illinois, which recently passed a "lockbox" ballot measure for road funds, tolls and fuel taxes take in 1.6 billion a year but the state spends over 4 billion a year just on road maintenance alone, not even counting ancillary expenses like DMV, State Police, etc.