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  1. #1
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Momentum builds in Congress for raising the federal gas tax

    Momentum builds in Congress for raising the federal gas tax

    By Laura Barron-Lopez and Keith Laing - 01/09/15 06:01 AM EST


    Record-low gas prices across the U.S. have given rise to fresh talk in Washington of raising the federal gas tax for the first time in over 20 years, with leading Republicans now saying a hike must not be ruled out.
    The GOP has long resisted calls from business leaders and others to boost the 18.4 cent-per-gallon tax as a way to pay for upgrades to the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges.

    Yet in recent days, senior Senate Republicans have said they want to keep options open and that "nothing is off the table" when weighing the best mechanisms to pay to finance infrastructure projects.

    "I just think that option is there, it's clearly one of the options," said Sen. Inhofe (R-Okla.), new chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

    Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the third-ranking Senate Republican, also said they were open to the possibility of raising the tax.

    Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress, meanwhile, declared this week that “now is the time” for an increase.

    While major obstacles stand in the way — namely the House of Representatives —business groups believe there is a real chance to raise the tax in the final two years of the Obama administration.

    “Comments this week from Sens. Inhofe, Hatch and Thune signal a growing recognition that the gas tax is a fair and consistent way to fund our infrastructure needs,” Association of Equipment Manufacturers spokesman Michael O’Brien said in an interview on Thursday.

    Democrats have typically been more open to the idea of hiking the gas tax, but it’s the shift in Republicans' tone that is drawing more attention to the possibility.

    Inhofe argues lawmakers "don't have a choice" but to consider raising the gas tax, which he says is more accurately called a "user fee" — a characterization the founder of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, has yet to sign off on.

    Americans for Tax Reform said it is still opposed to the idea of increasing the gas tax, despite the recent decline in fuel prices.

    “Before Congress even thinks about asking Americans to pay higher prices at the pump, it should make sure that the $33 billion the federal government collects annually from drivers is spent efficiently,” the anti-tax group said in a statement that was provided to The Hill.


    The tax reform group, however, did not say whether it would consider a gas tax hike this year a violation of its anti-tax pledge, which is signed by almost every Republican in the nation who runs for federal office.

    Inhofe said he has a response to those who may pushback against considering the fee as a viable option.

    "I remind my conservative friends, and people who ask the question about maybe as a part of a package having to increase the user fees, that this is what we are supposed to be doing," Inhofe told The Hill in a brief interview.

    "The user fee is very, very popular. The evidence of that is a lot of states are doing that on their own because 'well if the federal government won't do it we've got to do something about the roads,'" Inhofe said.
    Thune (R-S.D.) isn't outright for raising the tax, but stuck by comments he made during an interview with "Fox News Sunday, saying "we have to look at all options."

    Thune noted that he doesn't think a proposal to increase the tax would garner enough votes in Congress, "unless it's done in the context of the broader tax reform debate."

    "That is not my preference for how to fix this infrastructure issue," Thune added.

    But if its floated, he said "you would you have to reduce taxes somewhere else, you'd have to provide some tax relief."

    Similarly, Hatch (R-Utah) said that some Republicans could be enticed to back a gas tax increase if it was paired with tax cuts elsewhere.

    "Personally, I think we're going to have to change the rhetoric on that," Hatch said Thursday.

    "People who use the highways ought to pay for them," Hatch added. "That's a small price to pay to have the best highway system in the world. And that may be where we're going to have to go."

    A transportation industry source told The Hill that the comments from lawmakers indicated a new willingness to consider increasing gas taxes were one of “a few significant things that happened” that happened recently.

    “Most obviously, the price of gas and oil is likely to stay low for a long time, giving lawmakers some leeway to act on this,” the source said. “Even hardcore conservatives like Sen. Inhofe realize we need a long-transportation bill and that temporary patches are not helping.”

    Transportation advocates have noted that the Obama administration has been leery to get behind a gas tax increase, even as it has pushed Congress for years to pass a new long-term transportation bill.

    Obama’s former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, has come out in favor of a gas tax hike, but only after he left the administration in 2013. Obama has argued that lawmakers should fund transportation projects other way, pushing instead for a corporate tax reform package that has gone nowhere on Capitol Hill.

    The industry source said Obama’s reluctance to embrace a gas tax could actually help its prospects on Capitol Hill this year, however.

    “It’s politically difficult because [the Obama administration] hasn’t gone out on a ledge, but you could make any argument that if he came out in favor of this, it would doom it,” the source said. “I don’t think if a fully-funded highway bill came to his desk, he would veto it.”

    Republican congressional campaigns have meanwhile already signaled that they will attack lawmakers who support increasing the gas tax.

    “The year just started and Democrats already want to raise taxes,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Katie Prill said in a statement.

    And House Republicans may not be as open to the idea as their Senate counterparts.

    "My guess is there's far more interest in the Senate than there is in the House," said Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas), a senior Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.

    Asked about the idea during a news conference Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “I’ve never voted to raise the gas tax,” though he did not expressly rule out supporting one in the future.
    “A highway bill is critically important,” Boehner continued. “It’s a priority for this year. How we’ll fund it ... We are going to have to work our way through this.

    Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) shared that sentiment, telling The Hill a gas tax hike isn't likely.

    "I don't even see a gas tax increase happening," Portman said, instead saying a reform to calculating the gas tax could be an option.


    The gas tax, which predates the development of the Interstate Highway System by nearly two decades, has been the primary source for federal transportation projects since its creation in the 1930s.

    Receipts from the gas tax have been outpaced by transportation expenses by about $16 billion annually in recent years as construction costs have risen and cars have become more fuel efficient.

    The current level of federal spending on transportation is about $50 billion per year, but the gas tax only brings in about $34 billion annually at its current rate.

    Transportation advocates have argued that increasing the gas tax for the first time since 1993 would be the easiest way to close the gap. Lawmakers’ reluctance to ask drivers to pay more at the pump has doomed previous attempts to increase the gas tax.

    Congress has instead turned to other areas of the federal budget in recent years to close the gap. However, critics say the temporary bandages are contributing to a weakened national infrastructure.

    Congress had a chance to pass a multi-year transportation funding package last year, but lawmakers could not agree on a way to pay for more than a couple of months’ worth of projects, resulting in a temporary extension that lasts only until May 2015.

    The nearly $11 billion measure, which reauthorized the collection of the gas tax but did not increase it, was intended only to prevent a bankruptcy in the Department of Transportation’s Highway Trust Fund.

    The trust fund had been scheduled to run out of money in September without congressional action.

    Prior to the decline in gas prices, transportation advocates had suggested that the recently completed lame-duck session would have been the best time for lawmakers to raise the gas tax, because it would be more politically viable.

    However, lawmakers showed little appetite for tackling the proposed hike before they wrapped up the 113th Congress.
    Things appear different in the 114th, if Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin's (D-Ill.) comments are any indication.

    "I think now is the time to do it, but we ought to do it in a thoughtful way."
    - Bernie Becker contributed

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Flashback: Obama Promised His Stimulus Would Fix Crumbling Roads and Bridges

    May 24, 2013
    BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

    RUSH: We had a bridge collapse, which kind of surprised me because, you know, we spent almost a trillion dollars to repair the bridges in America, and I remember the president talking about it.

    Let's go back. November 22nd, 2008. This is after the election. This is his weekly YouTube address. He wasn't president yet, but he was president-elect. And he's talking about his stimulus plan. This is leading up to the stimulus, which he would put in place a few months later.

    OBAMA: There will be a two-year nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges.



    RUSH: How's that working out? Now, the reason I'm playing this is because they're gonna try to blame Bush for this before the day's over, if they're not already. Well, they'll find a way. Obama's not gonna take responsibility for this. The stimulus was supposed to repair the roads and bridges. I know they blame Bush. That's why I'm saying they'll blame him for this one. They blamed Bush for the Minneapolis bridge collapse. So this is the day that Obama signed the stimulus. This February 17th, 2009, he was in Denver at the Museum of Nature and Science.

    OBAMA: Because of this investment, nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrading mass transit, building high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout our nation.

    RUSH: How many of you low-information voters -- and I know you're out there. You know who you are, and I know who you are. You know you're there. How many of you now remember this? These were the heady days, folks, this was February 2009. You go back to February 2009, I mean, we were on the cusp of utopia. We just elected our messiah. Everybody but me believed. No, no, no, no. Leave me out of it. Everybody believed. You go back to January 2009, I'm telling you, the air was crackling with optimism. Everybody was really excited. We had this brand-new, never-seen-before politician, somebody who was going to eliminate partisanship. The racial problems were going to be solved. The country was once again gonna be loved by foreign powers.

    I mean, this was it. This was just almost a month after the immaculation. And here came the stimulus, and remember, everybody in the media and everybody that voted for Obama bought into every word of this. I just want you to think back. Remember, 'cause mind-sets today are nowhere near where they were then. The country today is in malaise, it's depressed, it's dispirited, other than certain pockets, but for the most part, it's aimless. It seems like every day there's a new institution crumbling or change in the country taking place that people think is not good change.

    But these were heady days, and this was the stimulus, and this was gonna put the economy back on track and get people back to work. And listen to what he said.


    "Four hundred thousand men and women are gonna go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrade mass transit, build high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout our nation."

    And you know the low-information crowd that voted for Obama bought every syllable of that. Now, we just had a bridge collapse, and none of what Obama described as being beneficiaries of new spending actually got any of it. All of that money went to unions. All of that money went to teachers and other public employee unions during the recession to make sure they were not laid off. Eighty percent of the stimulus went to Democrat voters. Eighty percent of the stimulus went to Democrat donors. Eighty percent of the stimulus went to Democrat supporters.

    None of it went to rebuild bridges and none of it went to rebuild roads and none of it went to rebuild schools. But back then it was exciting and everybody was filled with anticipation, because over 50% of the country bought into this. They believed it. They thought this was what's gonna happen. They thought this was good. They thought this was the proper way to spend money. Especially to bring us out of economic doldrums. We've now know that the bulk of that money went to make sure unionized Democrats didn't lose their jobs because unionized Democrats is a money laundering scheme. Teachers, other public employee unions pay dues.

    Now, Obama just can't go to the Treasury and write himself a $900 billion check for himself, the Democrat Party, for their campaign coffers. So what did they do? They wrote a check for $900 billion and told you they're gonna rebuild roads and bridges and schools and levees and broadband connections and high-speed rail lines, and all they did was send it to states who then used it to keep their public employees working so that they continued to pay dues. And a percentage of that $900 billion check that Obama wrote came back to him and the Democrat Party in the form of campaign contributions. A fantastic, and never before described this way, money-laundering scheme.



    Now, the day may welcome where Obama or a Democrat president can go to the Treasury and write himself a check for him and his party. But we're not there yet. So, in lieu of that, this is how they have to do it. There ought not have been a bridge collapse, folks. We should have been shoring all this up, the bridge shoulda held, it shouldn'ta collapsed. But there hasn't been any work done on the bridge, and there haven't been any new levees, and there hasn't been any new mass transit, and there hasn't been any new high-speed rail, and there hasn't been vast increases in critical broadband connections to businesses and homes, at least not that Obama has done. Four hundred thousand men and women rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, did not happen. I just want you to remember how you felt that day.

    Now, I know you didn't believe any of it. I know you in this audience knew exactly what it was, because you had me advising you, and you instinctively knew on your own. But we hadlow-information people, a lot of people listen that day hoping to hear me sad and depressed and down in the dumps, people that wanted to gloat over my misery. And many of those people were Obamaites. And of course I wasn't sad, and I wasn't giving them any reason to gloat. I was telling them exactly how they had been defrauded and how they had voted for something that was never gonna happen and couldn't happen. So it's fun to go back, revisit. Let's go to CNN this morning on Newsroom. This is a portion of how the anchor, Carol Costello, started her show today.



    COSTELLO: Happening now in the newsroom, bridge collapse, cars plunge into the freezing water below. As you head out the door for Memorial Day weekend, how safe are you?

    RUSH: Oh, yeah. See, since the bridge collapsed wherever it collapsed, yours could collapse over the Memorial Day weekend. How safe are you? Your bridge could be next. Your tunnel could be next. Your highway could buckle, a sinkhole could open up and swallow up your house. How's your weekend?

    BREAK TRANSCRIPT

    RUSH: Let me give you an AP story from July 31st of 2009. "Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier projects like repaving roads, an Associated Press analysis shows. ... President Obama urged Congress last winter to pass his $787 billion stimulus package so some of the economic recovery money could be used to rebuild what he called America's 'crumbling bridges.'"

    Didn't happen. Even the AP admits it. Now, what happened was, the bridge collapsed because of a truck that was too big. It exceeded the weight limit for the bridge. So there might not have even been anything wrong with the bridge. The truck was from Canada, by the way. The truck was too tall, probably because the Canadian driver -- I'm just guessing -- didn't know the clearance for the bridge because he was using metric and didn't know the difference between centimeters and feet. Who knows. Or he might have been two liters into the sauce. Who knows. I don't want say that. I don't know that that's true or not.

    But, anyway, no, I don't think I can make too big a deal of it. If you go back, that stimulus is what got all of this fraud started. The stimulus is what got all of this, this phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller so-called economic recovery started. And the stimulus was fraudulent from day one. Even this AP story that claims that the states spent whatever money they got on easier projects like repaving roads, that was chump change. The vast majority of stimulus money went to Democrat unions, particularly teachers unions.

    In Wisconsin -- I forget the exact percentage -- 70, 80% of the stimulus money there went to the teachers unions, for the express purpose of making sure that they stayed employed during the upcoming recession. And it was a payback to them for voting for Obama, for raising money for Obama. They pay their dues, you know what happens to union dues. They end up being spent on Democrat campaigns, buying ads for Democrat candidates. It was a way that Obama could secure a percentage of $900 billion of stimulus from the federal Treasury, back to the Democrat Party. And nobody was gonna oppose it. He's in his honeymoon period. He's the messiah. He's what everybody hoped we'd been waiting for, finally shown up. Whatever he wanted to do he was gonna get. Whatever he was gonna say about whatever he was doing, he was gonna be believed.

    END TRANSCRIPT
    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/20...ds_and_bridges

  3. #3
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Debunking Stimulus Myth: Only 3% Allotted for Road, Bridge Infrastructure Spending

    Published:
    1/23/2009

    By Jeff Poor


    You’ve heard it here, there and everywhere in the news media – the time is now for a big-government economic stimulus package, not only to revive the economy, but to salvage America’s crumbling infrastructure.

    That’s one of the selling points used over and over again by pundits, as they are paraded out repeatedly on broadcast and cable network news programs – that so-called “shovel-ready” projects will challenge economic woes by revitalizing something we need to do anyway. But only 3 percent of the Obama stimulus plan is slated for such projects.

    “The total size of the plan is about $750 to $800 billion – roughly $300 billion is for tax cuts for businesses and individuals,” CBS correspondent Chip Reid said on CBS’s Jan. 12 “The Early Show.” “The rest will be spent on everything from roads and bridges to renewable energy to create three to 4 million jobs. Republicans are raising red flags about the amount of spending.”
    In reality, little of the $850 billion American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 proposed by congressional Democrats will actually be spent on actual road and bridge projects – the sort of things most people think of when they hear infrastructure spending, according to the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

    The recent proposal distributed by congressional Democrats will provide only an additional $15 billion in 2009 and 2010 for road construction and repair. And of that $30 billion total provided, some funds are earmarked for narrow uses such as technology training or construction of roads on Indian reservations and in national parks.

    According to those calculations, that’s just a little more than 3 percent meant to be spent on actual road and bridge construction. Compare that $30 billion allocated in this bill to the most expensive road project in U.S. history – the infamous “Big Dig” of Massachusetts. The final tally puts the cost of this road project to $15 billion and estimates say it will end up costing $22 billion by the year 2038. The $30 billion in this package would just be enough to cover the costs of that one project and a few smaller plans.


    “This $900 billion economic stimulus is being sold as a massive highway infrastructure bill, when, in truth, only 3 percent of this money is committed to highway construction,” Sessions said in a statement. “This is the largest spending bill the Congress has ever considered, and the American people – who ultimately are going to pick up the tab – need to know exactly what they are getting, or not getting, for their money.”

    Still, even recently sworn-in President Barack Obama is out on the stump selling it as a road and bridge stimulus proposal.

    “We’re making a series of investments that point to the future, as well as just dealing withrebuilding our roads, bridges, et cetera,” Obama said on ABC’s Jan. 11 “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “Now, there's no doubt that that probably gives you the most bang for the buck in terms of stimulus, in terms of getting the economy started and putting people back to work. But there are only so many projects that you can do quickly of that sort.”

    And reporters are on board with the mythology of the stimulus package also. CNBC’s John Harwood outlined the road and bridge component of the stimulus on NBC’s Jan. 11 “Meet the Press,” but wasn’t able differentiate just how much.

    “He’s got a hundred billion dollars of infrastructure, try to spend on roads, bridges, electricity grid, green jobs, alternative energy spending. He’s got $300 billion worth of tax cuts, most of which he campaigned on, some of which he’s added to try to lure Republicans to support this package on the Hill.”

    The mantra – this massive spending package is needed to rescue America’s “crumbling infrastructure – as Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor at Princeton University said on CNN’s Jan. 7 “American Morning.”

    “Sometimes it’s true that the government is better than private industry or individual households in moving us out of such a big hole,” Harris-Lacewell said. “Most importantly, because the government can take on enormous projects like the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure, the movement of our energy plan into a more green energy economy, these kinds of things are actually best undertaken by massive projects.”

    “We could put easily a million people to work just in rebuilding transportation infrastructure and that’s everything from white collar jobs like architects to blue collar jobs like the people actually out there pouring that cement for you,” she continued.

    “It’s just 2.7 percent of the spending proposal that’s being contemplated for what every person would normally characterize as infrastructure,” Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said to the Business & Media Institute. “And that’s really a weakness in this proposal. So, look – it’s a fig leaf - $30 billion, which is the infrastructure piece in an $850 billion plan. You could only characterize that as a fig leaf.”

    “Again, what you see in Democrat bill is 14 years of pent-up demand to increase the size, scope, power and expense of the federal government,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said to BMI. “What are they are doing within this bill, which they parade under the title of ‘stimulus,’ is fund 150 different federal programs – 32 brand-new programs, 19 programs which OMB [Office of Management and Budget] has labeled as ineffective or shown no results.”

    In a conference call on Jan. 23, House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor and Hensarling pointed out some of the more egregious spending provisions in the House Democrat proposal:


    • For every dollar that is spent for small business tax relief, $4 are being spent for the maintenance and new grass in Washington, D.C. $360 million for sexually transmitted disease education $50 million for the National Endowment of Arts $726 million for an afterschool snack program Office furniture for the public health service More money for Amtrak

    “How any of this fits under the banner of economic stimulus is beyond me,” Hensarling said. “I think it would prove to be beyond the American people as well.”

    The 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge spanning the Mississippi in Minneapolis, Minn. was the initial event that prompted some in the media to start calling for higher taxes and up to $1.6 trillion in government spending to update infrastructure. However, the $30 billion allocated in this proposal represents a tiny fraction of that number.

    http://www.mrc.org/articles/debunkin...cture-spending


  4. #4
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    So, where does the consumer get a break? Mandate fuel efficiency vehicles, then raise taxes while promoting immigration legally and illegally to force wages down. Something in Washington is ill tuned, eh? Insanity there (vs. common sense) seems to be infectious? Maybe a vaccine is necessary for this!

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