Gas tax is running on empty

Bloomberg Businessweek reports by the end of August, the Highway Trust Fund will have zero dollars in its account, which means there will be no money for repairs to the nation's deteriorating highways and bridges.
 
And that's a pretty big deal, according to Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation. “Most of that pavement was intended to last 50 years, and that was 50 years ago,” he says.
 
Congress will, more than likely, throw together a last-minute fix that will raise about $11 billion, enough to last until May 2015, the report states. But agreements on long-term plans to shore up the fund remain elusive. Closing corporate tax loopholes or increasing the federal gas tax either can't gain bipartisan support or are not expected to generate enough revenue to close the funding gap; eliminating the gas tax and transferring responsibility for all road maintenance to states is favored by tea party supporters but is drawing mixed reactions from some states.

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