Comments on: High Gas Prices = Less Gas Sold = Less Tax Collected = Little Money To Repair Roads

By: BigCarbonFoot

BigCarbonFoot — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:00:21 +0000

Do your part. Get in your car and start driving. Move further from work. Make carpooling illegal. Scrap all mass transit.

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:32:53 +0000

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/July_2008_Notes.pdf
Current tax, state and fed.

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:46:30 +0000

The only way they get LESS, is if there is LESS gallons sold.
but it still dont answer the question…
In the last 10-20 years…WHERE IS THE MONEY?

The money from Trucking taxes, Property TAX, HIGHWAY tax and FUEL tax…

By: deowll

deowll — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:54:40 +0000

It depends on the way the tax is set up. If it was X cents on the gallon they get less money if less gas is sold but if it was X cents on the dollar how are they getting less money when a gallon costs a lot more dollars? Are people spending less money on gas? I don’t think so.

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:16:53 +0000

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/

As of July 1, 2008, the average amount of tax imposed on a gallon of gasoline sold in the United States was 49.4 cents per gallon, up 2.4 cents from the January 2008 report. For diesel fuel, the national average amount of tax was 56.4 cents per gallon, up 2.8 cents from the January 2008 report.

By: ECA

ECA — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:13:02 +0000

JIM,
Gas TAX is not a PERCENTAGE in the USA…never has been.
Its a FIXED amount per gallon.

By: JimR

JimR — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:49:22 +0000

The price of gas has doubled in a year, therefore the tax revenue per gallon has doubled. Take that 100% increase in fuel revenues and subtract a measly 3.7% drop in gas usage. Net… your gov is taking in 96.5% more tax revenue on gas than a year ago. Get it?

By: ECA

ECA — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:29:08 +0000

PS.
the AGE does mean something..
As Bridges made 60+ years ago were NOT designed for CURRENT numbers of cars and trucks.

Where did the money GO??
As a president of the past has said.
It costs over 1/2 of the TAX to collect the TAX.
ANd its not just the GAS tax, the transportation TAX and PROPERTY TAX that PAY for roads and maintenance..
THAT is alot of money..
Figure GAS..
1,000,000 gallons per STATE(min.est)
x48 continental states
PER day
x 365
times that by .70(the avg tax for states)
= 12,264,000,000 is the MINIMUM amount in taxes.
and their estimate is 10 TIMES this amount is already being collected??

I will tell you what will happen.
AS THE PRICE of gas goes DOWN…The TAX will soon DOUBLE..
AND..
in the first few years things WILL be done, and then…LEFt to ROT. and the TAx wont go down.

By: ECA

ECA — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:10:15 +0000

Ummm,
1. the Gas tax hasnt gone DOWN. its the SAME as it EVER was. its not a percentage, so it DIDNT go up, either.
2. HOW old are these bridges, and roads?
3. in the 90′s there was a study of bridges and roads in the USA…70% of the bridges DIDNT PASS inspection.
4. where did the money go?

By: RSweeney

RSweeney — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:34:00 +0000

Not to let facts get in the way of a good story, but… the Minneapolis I-35 bridge DID NOT collapse due to lack of repair, but instead due to a hidden design/construction defect there since day one. The bridge was weak by design.

Ironically, it was an infrastructure improvement project that overloaded the deficient bridge resulting in its collapse.

By: lou

lou — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:11:11 +0000

Nothing to worry about. W will just put it on the credit card.
Call Bernanke and get the bond printer going.

By: Pmitchell

Pmitchell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:25:03 +0000

there is plent of money to fix the highways our govt just blows it and steals it from the highway fund not to mention the huge waste of money light rail and hov lanes are

just stop wasting my tax dollars on the 100million dollar a mile light rail in houston and you can fix one hell of a lot of roads

By: Grandpa

Grandpa — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:02:59 +0000

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: You can’t send hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs overseas without creating a recession.

The rich traitors in Washington want us to work for less. Do you really think millions of illegals are here by mistake?

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:56:45 +0000

The implicit argument is that all of this happened quite suddenly. As if the number of miles driven, the tax revenue decline, and the need to repair bridges and the like all occured at the same time.

In truth, bridges and roads have been in bad repair for years. When revenues were plentiful and the economy doing well, it makes more (political) sense to build new roads than it does to repair existing ones. This is the same logic that says it is better to convert farm land to housing while letting city centers rot away.

If the decision makers had instead chosen set as a priority to maintain existing infrastructure before building anything additional, this problem would vanish, more productive land would be available to produce food, and downtown redevelopment would not be needed.

Ignoring all of that they now excuse the poor state of the roads and bridges on a recent decline in revenue.

By: MikeN

MikeN — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:21:18 +0000

Off topic, but how about we let any gas car that meets European standards be automatically allowed for sale in the US? GM and Ford sell cars in Europe, but they don’t sell them here, partly because it’s expensive to change them for US regulations.