Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Fair or Regressive?

What is the best way to pay for the restoration and repair of the infrastructure of the nation’s roads. Basically there are two general pays to pay for this expense.
First, one could argue that since everyone benefits in some way from good roads, (for instance the trucks that use the roads deliver food that everyone eats), all should chip in for their upkeep etc. If one accepts this logic, then the cost would come out of a general fund.
On the other hand one could argue that most if not all of this expense should be borne by those that use these roads. It only makes sense to have the users pay for their maintenance and repair.
Recently President Trump said that he would consider an increase in the federal gas tax to pay for this infrastructure repair. In an ideal world those that used the roads the most would pay the most, and the revenue collected from this gas tax would then pay for road maintenance and repair. The Democrats in California have bought into this paradigm, and have recently increased the gas tax in California by 12 cents per gallon. Of course in California, prior funds that were supposed to be allocated for roads seem to have “disappeared’! (A topic for another day.)
However, as in California, this proves to be a regressive way to fund road maintanence.
There are multiple reasons that this is an unfair system. To start, under this system, those who can afford to buy electric cars pay nothing to maintain and repair the roads. The electric car users use the roads as much as everybody else, but because they do not buy gas, they pay no gasoline tax. In addition those who can afford to buy hybrids would pay significantly less as they get very good gas mileage and thus use much less gas. So despite the fact that they also use the roads just as much as everybody else, they would pay much less to maintain and repair them. When the rose-colored glasses are removed, it is the poorest among us who will be forced to pay the most. Of course one might argue that because they usually have to live the furthest from where they work, they use the roads more than the average-Joe, and so they should pay the most. But the dilemma here is that for the most part, they cannot afford electric cars or hybrids. The older cars that they drive do not get the best gas mileage, and so they will use more gas for a variety of reasons and thus will bear the brunt of this regressive tax.
In my opinion there are but two ways to level the playing field. You can tax individuals by the number of miles that they drive – the more miles one drives, the more one should pay to maintain and repair the roads. Although this might be the penultimate of fairness, because electric cars and hybrids would pay their fair share, it would be impossible to administer. The other option is to apply a federal tax across the board to every car when the state license plate is renewed yearly. Is this option perfect? Heck no, and I suspect that the solution lies somewhere between “fair” and “regressive.”

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