DALLAS -- Most Americans would support a 50% increase in the federal gasoline tax, provided the additional revenues were dedicated to highway maintenance, according to the latest nationwide poll on transportation funding options.
The telephone poll of 1,503 respondents in the seventh annual survey carried out by the Mineta Transportation Institute found that 75% would support a 10 cent increase in the federal gasoline tax, if the revenues were directed to road improvements.
Support for the proposed 54% increase in the 18.4 cents per gallon gasoline tax fell to just 31% if respondents received a vague promise that it would fund maintenance and improvements to surface transportation, said survey director Asha Weinstein Agrawal, director of the Mineta Institute's National Transportation Finance Center.
"Conventional wisdom says that Americans strongly oppose any increase in the federal gas tax," she said. "However, this survey shows that more than half of Americans support a federal gas tax increase if the revenue is dedicated to improving maintenance, safety, or the environment."
Transportation revenues available from federal and state highway taxes have tumbled in recent decades in terms of inflation-adjust dollars per mile traveled, Agrawal said.
"Either the nation must dramatically lower its goals for system preservation and enhancement, or new revenues must be raised," Agrawal said. "If the latter is to happen, legislators must be convinced that increasing taxes or fees is politically feasible."
The federal gasoline tax is now the equivalent of about 11 cents due to inflation since it was last increased in the early 1990s, the Congressional Budget Office said last year.
More than 20 states have gone for 10 years or more without raising their gasoline tax, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Tennessee hasn't adjusted its gasoline tax in 27 years, ITEP said, while New Mexico's fuel tax rate is 23 years old and Montana's is 22 years old.
An analysis of more than130 opinion polls gauging the public acceptance of gasoline tax increases over the past 20 years found significant support for the higher rates, she said.
"Although support levels are not universally high, they are often higher than one might expect given the frequent pronouncements in the news media that the public simply will not tolerate an increase in the gas tax rate," Agrawal said.
Two-thirds of respondents supported the current federal funding approach that allocates about 18% of federal fuel tax revenues to public transit capital projects`, although only 41% supported increasing fuel taxes to improve transit operations.
A proposed new 0.5% federal sales tax dedicated to highway and transit projects was a more popular way to pay for highway projects than either a higher gasoline tax or a per-mile road charge, Agrawal said.
More than half the respondents favored a nationwide sales tax for transportation with only 23% supporting a road tax of 1 cent per mile, she said. Basing the road fee on a vehicle's pollution level brought the approval level to 46%.
"Sales taxes have been one of the most popular methods used by local governments to raise revenue for transportation purposes," Agrawal said. "If the federal government were to consider imposing its own sales tax, there would likely be a powerful backlash from state and local officials."
