Gas Tax - It's Time

Before I begin, let me first state that the following opinion is certainly not a universal opinion of the Natick Republican Town Committee. It may not even be the opinion of a majority. I don’t know. I haven’t asked. If others disagree, feel free to post the counter argument. But here’s my thesis: it’s time to raise the gas tax in Massachusetts.

A Republican in favor of a tax increase? Blasphemous! But hear me out. First, I will stipulate that there is a tremendous amount of wasted spending in the state that could be a rich source of additional funding for the decrepit transportation system. We certainly should go after that source, but with the macro economy weakening, we will need that recouped wasted spending to fund other priorities such as schools.

As people within the state know all too well, the lack of transportation funding is due in large part to the Big Dig money sink-hole. The Big Dig, originally estimated to cost $2.8 billion, eventually topped $22 billion. I could fill a blog just with the problems surrounding the Big Dig, but I’ll leave that for another day. The point is, much of the $22 billion was borrowed, and the interest and principle have to be paid back, and those payments are so onerous that there is little money left over to fund other transportation projects. One solution to raise additional revenue is to hike the tolls on the Mass Turnpike – hike them WAY up. Besides being unfair to ask users of the Mass Pike (mostly commuters west of Boston, as the Pike runs east/west) to fund the Big Dig, a toll increase will do little to encourage fuel efficiency. And fuel efficiency is what we need to strive for.

Why fuel efficiency? It has nothing to do with ‘global warming’. Check out Whoops! Never Mind! to see my skepticism of global warming. Fuel efficiency is needed to break the US dependence on foreign oil. When gas prices were high last summer, the US was sending billions of dollars out of the country to fund dictators in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. With gas prices low, those three countries are in a world of hurt. If gas prices rally, they will be right back using those US dollars to undermine the US. We need to encourage the shifting behavior patterns seen with high energy prices, a behavior that can all too easily revert to oil dependency with low gas prices. A gas tax would make it more expensive to use gas, encourage conservation, and perhaps be a first small step to encourage energy independence from the oil dictators.

So mark me down as a supporter of a hike of the gas tax. It’s time.