Washington periodically rediscovers the idea of suspending the federal gasoline tax whenever fuel prices rise and voters grow restless, and the White House and a bipartisan handful of lawmakers are once again contemplating a suspension of the tax. The proposal is politically tempting because it can be marketed as immediate relief for motorists.
But let’s face things head-on: This would represent a change distinctly less than salutary. It would be a small – and largely cosmetic – gesture that obscures a much larger problem the country has spent years loath to confront: the gas tax-funded Highway Trust Fund, which faces insolvency.
Start with the basics. The federal gas tax has been unchanged since its 18.4 cents/gallon in 1993 – i.e., what you would have paid during the 1990s decade of the Clinton administration. Apply the relatively modest 2% annual inflation rate across these 30-plus years, and the real purchasing power of that 18.4 cents shrinks to roughly 9 cents in 1993 dollars.
Congress didn’t vote to cut the tax in half. Inflation did it quietly.
That terse fact matters critically because, statutorily, the tax proceeds flow into the federal Highway Trust Fund – the government account responsible for the maintenance and improvement of the Interstate Highway System. As the tax’s real value has eroded, the Trust Fund has crept inexorably toward insolvency, despite funding the needed repaving of interstates, the shoring-up of their fragile overpasses, the addition of ramps, and dozens of other obligations too tedious to enumerate but all essential to maintaining a reliable national highway network. Only successive bailouts of the Trust Fund by the administration’s general fund have kept it afloat.
Consider the specifics of just one case of infrastructural urgency: Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, a span on the city’s I-695 Beltway and, therefore, a nontrivial component of the federal highway network. It’s been more than two years since the container ship Dali struck and toppled the bridge, but its replacement appears to face a prolonged delay. Multiply that one non-operational bridge-crossing by the country’s accumulating backlog, and the scale of the problem begins to come into focus.
The problem I’m describing was recently, and thoroughly, analyzed by municipal-finance expert Richard Ciccarone, who sought to put a dollar estimate of highway wear-and-tear impact on the economy. His total – surveying the situation around some 2,000 cities – came to somewhat over $1 trillion. (That’s not a typo!) Not that such a magnitude is solely attributable to neglect by the Trust Fund, but it underscores the nature of the general problem.
Against that backdrop, gas-tax suspension is worse than a distraction. The current run-up at the pump – with the national average moving from around $3 to now $4.50/gallon – has its roots in oil-market shocks beyond Washington’s reach. Cutting 18.4 cents will not address them. With underlying causes unresolved, drivers would – at best – see a marginal pocketbook break. Industry or society as a whole would absorb the cost.
Indeed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the chamber’s top Republican, addressed the importance of the Highway Trust fund when recently speaking to reporters on proposed gas tax holiday legislation. He was reported in The Hill as saying: “We do have a Highway Trust Fund and it does perform an important service in making sure that we’ve got highways and roadways across our country that are serviceable.” It is highly notable to see the Senate leader recognize the arguments for protecting public infrastructure revenue against the president’s tax-cut impulse.
There is, finally, an environmental dimension which deserves a brief mention. When Hurricane Helene tore across several southeastern states in the autumn of 2024, it brought down millions of trees and blocked the very roads that firefighters and other emergency responders needed to reach communities in distress. The point is obvious: Aside from daily commuting, highways may well emerge as increasingly important lifelines to climatic shocks like wildfires and floods – this newfound frequency recently illustrated by the Washington Post. A highway funding regime that, even now, cannot keep up with routine wear-and-tear is poorly positioned for such increasingly dangerous atmospheric phenomena.
All of which justifies acknowledging that no Washington legislator has an easy vote on the tax question. As Congress further deliberates gas tax proposals in committees and on the floor, combative political gamesmanship must defer to the well-being of both the nation and many of its localities.
Among the latter, there’s that Key Bridge commuter, who envisions that – sooner rather than later – a repaired crossing might once again mean arrival and an evening meal in the northern suburbs at a respectable time. Those pennies at the pump will turn out not to have been a waste.
