Every time gasoline prices spike at the pump, one politician or another proposes cutting the state gas tax to “help working families save a few of their hard-earned dollars.”
Please don’t do us any favors. First, because you’re saving us only pennies on a fill-up. Second, because the millions the state highway fund loses mean our roads don’t get paved, our potholes don’t get repaired and our urban loops don’t get built. Third, because rising oil prices also increase road-maintenance and repair costs.
At the General Assembly, the recent gasoline increase to $3.50 a gallon has some legislators thinking they should either freeze the adjustable portion of the motor-fuels tax or cut it.
The adjustable rate changes every six months and reflects the retail price of fuel during the previous period. If prices stay where they are now, the tax will go up two cents a gallon. Simply capping the adjustable rate and freezing the state tax at the current 32.5 cents per gallon seems reasonable until one considers the ramifications. The Department of Transportation says a cap would amount to $1 billion in lost revenue over the coming decade. That means 18,335 miles of roads will go unpaved in that time.
Sen. Neal Hunt, R-Wake, a proponent of freezing the tax rate, says the state can shift a billion dollars from other projects – mostly building unneeded roads – to pay for repaving those 18,335 miles. But North Carolina faces a long-term transportation shortfall somewhere in the stratosphere of $50 billion plus. Does Hunt not understand that first-rate transportation infrastructure is essential to building an economy?
The legislature should leave the tax law as it is and protect our roads.
