Community Forums

rchonly · 01-18-2008, 05:26 AM

This subject was brought up on the RV Net forum a couple of days ago and it got "Poofed" twice.

Can we discuss this on IRV2 or is it too political here too?

It was linked from an article in the Houston Chronical that I can't seem to find. Apparently there is a Congressional Subcommitee studying this idea.

I beleive there can be some good discourse offered on this subject and it should be forwarded to our legislators through various websites such as <congress.org> or whatever is your pleasure.

I trust this will stay up for awhile.

I have some thoughts about it, but will reserve them to see if this thread will continue.

I'll be away the rest of the day so I won't see what follows until this evening.

Roger

rchonly · 01-18-2008, 05:26 AM

This subject was brought up on the RV Net forum a couple of days ago and it got "Poofed" twice.

Can we discuss this on IRV2 or is it too political here too?

It was linked from an article in the Houston Chronical that I can't seem to find. Apparently there is a Congressional Subcommitee studying this idea.

I beleive there can be some good discourse offered on this subject and it should be forwarded to our legislators through various websites such as <congress.org> or whatever is your pleasure.

I trust this will stay up for awhile.

I have some thoughts about it, but will reserve them to see if this thread will continue.

I'll be away the rest of the day so I won't see what follows until this evening.

Roger

SeeTheUSA · 01-18-2008, 05:56 AM

While the general idea of an increased fuel tax is not something most folks would heartily embrace, your introduction of the subject is missing an important component --- the details.

Any chance you can find the newspaper article?

MtManLee · 01-18-2008, 06:19 AM

Yes it would help if we had more info on the subject.

rchonly · 01-18-2008, 06:33 AM

Well, I've found it copied it to my hard drive and can't for the life of me get it to link to this site.

So, here's the address I have for the article
<Fed panel urges 40cent gas tax hike Chron_com-houston chronicle_files>. Maybe one of you who is better at this than I'am can get that to link up.

Sorry I'm not more help here.

Roger

quikduk · 01-18-2008, 07:08 AM

I found this Fox News link from Jan 15, 2008.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322946,00.html

...and this one from the Milwaukee Journal...

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=707692

...and this one from the CEO of Ford...

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news0.../gas_ford.html

Can you see us paying $7-9 per gallon for our DP's? I sure hope not.

Hope that helps.

RustyJC · 01-18-2008, 07:17 AM

Here's the Houston Chronicle article.

Rusty

RustyJC · 01-18-2008, 08:01 AM

Leaving politics (if not government) out of this, the problem is that federal and many states enacted fuel taxes of X cents per gallon to fund road construction and maintenance many years ago instead of making the fuel tax Y% of the selling price of the fuel. With the tax fixed at X cents per gallon and compounded by consumption not moving up as fast as road usage (as a fleet, newer vehicles get better fuel economy), there's a shortfall in revenue available to fund highway construction and maintenance as costs have risen.

The fuel tax is a pretty pure user tax - those who use the roads and burn the fuel pay for the road constuction and maintenance, so increasing the fuel tax, if the money were truly used for road maintenance and construction, is certainly a valid (if unpopular) approach. Conversely, here in Texas, the politicians are unwilling to raise taxes (including the fuel tax), so the movement du jour is to make new construction, and even to try to convert existing highways to, toll roads.

Either way, if we want new roads and the existing ones maintained, we're gonna have to pay for it somehow. Fuel taxes or toll roads - which is more unpleasant??

Rusty

RedneckExpress · 01-18-2008, 11:28 AM

I'll take a toll road, for the most part you can usually find another route around if you don't want to pay it.

rchonly · 01-18-2008, 04:16 PM

I'm back

I see the article I was referring to has been found and linked along with a few others.

A couple of questions I would pose to the members of this committee are as follows:

1. How much of the original funding through fuel and road taxes has actually stayed within the earmarked designation of maintaining the highway infrastructure and how much was loaned out or granted to non-funded mandated projects and not repaid to the fund?

I know this practice is done in many local municipalities and I'll assume it is being done on the federal level as well.

2. If so, has there been and is there sufficient revenue being generated under the present taxing rates to accomplish the maintenance program required if all funds were retained by the DOT (if that is the proper agency).

By doing a little basic math based upon supposition as to how many vehicles may have contributed tax revenue over say the past 20 years, figuring each auto contributes say $200.00 per annum from using say 10 gallons of fuel per week, it's very easy to come up with several $$$trillion$$$ in revenue to have been generated to be used for this maintenance.

My final thought is let's place this and any other question you/we come up with before this group by addressing them directly or through our federal and state legislators through such vehicles as <congress.org> or whatever vehicle you use to contact these ladies and gentlemen.

Who knows we may just plant a seed or two that may bear fruit.

Roger

read & learn · 01-19-2008, 03:10 AM

No one likes taxes, but a user tax [gas tax] is one that is very important.
Where has this money gone to in the past.
We can just about leave any state and go from one part of this country to another.
ex: leave the Atlantic Ocean on the East coast and drive in as little as 3/4 days and be on he West coast at the Pacific Ocean or leave Miami, Fl and be in Chicago in 2/3 days.
Lets look at how long those trips would have taking back in the 1940's 0r 50's Anywhere from 20-60 days, some us can remember how long it took to go somewhere back than. That is why we have Eisenhower Highway System today. [google the Eisenhower highway system and see what is was like 50-60 years ago]
The roads today on the most part are smooth and level. Years ago we would drive on roads that we call today Backroads RTE 66--Rte 301 etc. Some of us still drive these roads when we have the time.
Many others don't have the time to go on long trips, more the 100 miles, for a family vacation so we are happy to have these roads.
Again what it comes down too is, we have to pay the piper if we want our roads maintained, everything has it's price.
The Feds did a survey to see how many bridges needed repair and found that tens of thousands were in need of some type of repair and hundreds need to be replaced. This money has to come from somewhere.
Remember everyone pays the same Federal gas tax, but State gas tax are up to each state, that's why you pay different prices for fuel in different states.

SideRoads · 01-19-2008, 03:28 AM

Any Tax is kinda like, the 1 percent income tax imposed, I think it was in 1911. It's still 1% isn't it?

They have never seen a TAX they didn't like.

They all are temporary Taxes. Where can I buy that Bridge?

ruppr · 01-19-2008, 05:39 AM

I've got to go along with Roger on this one, there has been a tremendous amount of this previous collected revenue siphon off for other uses/programs in Washington. Who's to say the new proposed collections will good where they are designated for??

Just wondering---

Best,

codgerbill · 01-21-2008, 03:10 AM

In Michigan we have the fed gas tax, the michigan gas tax ($0.19) and a sales tax of 6%. When the price of fuel reaches the record levels so does the revenue collected from the sales tax. With all this money comeing in one would tend to think that Michigan mite have a highway system second to none, however the opposite seems to be the norm. The sales tax is used for the general fund and the roads in michigan, while somewhat better than a third world country, are among some of the worst in the nation. Haveing driven in many other states one can tell that one is in Michigan by the state of the highway system. I have a suspicion that the profits of the road builders and campaign contributions may somehow be intermingled.