If you are looking for a looming problem that illustrates Congress’ trouble governing our country, look no further than the Highway Trust Fund. Unless lawmakers can find new money or spending cuts, the principal funding source for maintaining our roads and bridges (among other things) will soon be running on fumes. Lawmakers’ failure to bring transportation revenue in line with spending, despite many opportunities to do so, has created yet another budget crisis.
On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office said the fund will need about $8.1 billion to meet its anticipated obligations through the end of the year. The House and Senate are not in session, but staffers from the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee are reportedly meeting this week to come up with a way to plug that hole.
This is not a surprising problem. In fact, it has been staring Congress in the face for years. The trust fund is fueled by the gasoline tax. Every driver who purchases fuel pays an excise tax of 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline or 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel. But it’s been more than 20 years since Congress increased the tax and inflation has greatly diminished its purchasing power. And while the federal government spends about $53 billion on highway and transit projects a year, the gasoline tax only generates about $35 billion. Since 2008, Congress has transferred a total of $54 billion from the nation’s general revenues to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent. At the same time, federal law requires automakers to double fuel economy by 2025, which could push proceeds from a gas tax even lower. At the current rate of spending, the trust fund will be $172 billion in the red by 2024.