The Birmingham News: The tax you pay for what you use every day
media mentionBy Mike D. Smith
on June 14, 2013 at 4:49 PM, updated June 15, 2013 at 11:08 PM
I know I can tell you to the cent what I gave Alabama Power last month. Same goes for my cellphone bill, car note and my apartment complex.
All that really matters when we’re direct-depositing hard-earned cash into a gas pump is the full amount leaving our accounts, right?
How much of that total breaks down into state and federal gas taxes? Got me. Never really thought about it — except that I could find gas for between 95 cents and $1.10 total per gallon when I first started driving. How I long for some 2004 throwback prices under $2.
Based on a recent survey by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, 40 percent of Americans don’t know how much they pay monthly in gas taxes, Better Roads Magazine reported.
On average, it’s about $46 per month for the average household, according to a Federal Highway Administration estimate. That means average households spend more than three times as much per month to power their homes, more than twice as much for cable/satellite television, radio or Internet access.
I’ll have to crunch my own numbers, but I can see that as possible.
I can also see why any talk in transportation circles about the “t” word is done in hushed voices.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently underscored in a report entitled “Don’t Blame The Gas Tax for High Gas Prices” that a majority of people don’t understand that gas taxes are fixed. Crude oil prices explain the rise in costs. (See where this is going?)
That’s true. The last sizable federal gas tax increase was in 1993, and Alabama’s hasn’t been raised in two decades. According to the institute, in 2000, about one-third of what we paid per gallon were taxes. In 2013, that’s about 14 percent.
But, brace yourselves: This statement from the report may hurt. (Remember: It comes from them. I’m just the messenger.)
“While the stubbornly high price of gas has made it politically difficult for lawmakers to propose raising the gas tax, voters should be aware that the gas tax is not to blame for those high prices,” the report states. “Continuing to delay raising the gas tax because of crude oil price growth will bring with it enormous costs for American infrastructure and the hundreds of millions of people that use it every day.”
I’m not going to put words in their mouths, but I think we see what they’re getting at. You’ve gotta admit it’s something to think about.
The Alabama state gas tax — 20.9 cents for gasoline and 21.9 cents for diesel — produces about $380 million, which is divided up among the Alabama Department of Transportation’s divisions and among counties. Revenue has been flat since about 2005, but will dwindle, projections show.
Alabama expects to get back 94 percent of the revenue from federal tax revenue it collects and sends to Washington, D.C. At 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel, that’s another $730 million.
Together, that yields about $1.1 billion. The “b” in billion always adds a nice wow factor, but this is transportation — a world where perspective is everything.
The planned three-year project to replace the Interstate 20/59 bridges through downtown Birmingham now stands at $300 million. The Northern Beltline’s latest 30-year cost estimate approaches five times that combined revenue. And I’m sure an Interstate 10 bridge over the Mobile River won’t be cheap.
Not to mention maintaining what you have. As much as we curse their wretched condition, we do love our public roads in Alabama. In 2009, we traveled more than 13,400 miles per capita — the third-highest rate in the country.
Start digging in sofa cushions and vacuuming out vehicles. Looks like we’ll be called on to fork over some more change somehow, someday.
Road rubbish:
Log in the roadway along southbound entrance ramp from Montgomery Highway onto I-65 southbound
Large cooler in the left lane of John Hawkins Parkway (Alabama 150)
Large piece of wood in middle of I-459 northbound after I-65 interchange
Two large boards along U.S. 280 westbound near Meadowlark Drive
Dead deer, its head in the roadway at Inverness Parkway and Selkirk Drive
Metal push broom in right two lanes at I-65 southbound exit to Valleydale Road
Could have used that last thing to sweep up the glass I almost couldn’t miss along Sixth Avenue Southwest downtown the other day.
Don’t just buckle up. Tie down.