PRESS RELEASE

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More Calls for Gas Tax Doubling for Infrastructure Spending

Nov. 10, 2017 (EIRNS)—The American Transportation Research Agency issued a report yesterday dismissing all non-public and non-tax revenue sources for new transport infrastructure, and calling for a 20 cents per gallon increase in the Federal gasoline tax. This would roughly double the tax rate and likely cause the Highway Trust Fund to receive about $65 billion a year in funds. The report, "A Framework for Infrastructure Funding," concludes that "the only meaningful mechanism for attaining the [Trump] administration’s vision for a large-scale infrastructure program is through a federal fuel tax increase."

The Federal contribution to all transportation and transit infrastructure spending in the United States has fallen to 20-25%; the rest is spent by states and municipalities, and the total is falling.

Among the report’s other findings is that "Almost all privatized toll roads in the U.S. have filed bankruptcy."

The same demand was made at a Nov. 7 hearing in a subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, by the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the Operating Engineers Union.

The ATRI in its report estimated the gas tax increase it was proposing would generate 500,000 jobs in constructing new transportation infrastructure. But if the tax revenue were leveraged through a national infrastructure bank, it could generate ten times as much new employment.