The gas tax would go down to 4 cents a gallon.
Congress has a particularly bad habit of bailing out federal programs without addressing the underlying problems that caused failure in the first place. This round, we’re punting the ball on the Highway Trust Fund.
However, this time is different. We have a common-sense solution to reform our nation’s transportation policy, modernize America’s outdated transportation infrastructure system, and return decision making power to the states.
The Transportation Empowerment Act will update federal transportation policy with the same proven principles—diversity, customization and open-sourcing—that are driving innovation across our economy today.
Today, when we think of federal transportation policy, we think of the triumph of the Interstate Highway System. It was an enormous national project that began in the 1950s under President Eisenhower and reflected post-war America’s confident optimism. We had become a combustion-engine economy and needed a transportation network to connect our nation. So we built one.
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, you can drive from Miami to Salt Lake, and from San Diego to Boston, only having to stop for gas. And a job well done is still a job, well, done.
In recent decades, America’s transportation needs have changed, but—as is too common in Washington today—our transportation policies have not kept pace. The highway program, and those who used it, built highways, via a per-gallon gasoline tax paid at the pump.
Today, drivers still pay the tax, but politicians redirect portions of the highway fund for bike lanes and walking paths and public transit systems in certain cities. Meanwhile, partisan giveaways to special interests and bureaucratic skimming artificially inflate the cost of new infrastructure projects by as much as 20 percent.
