Texas Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, said last week that the state must find a way to finance highway projects, including an increase in the gasoline tax.
Let me be straight and bottom-line tell you that by 2012, funds for new transportation in this state will largely go away, Carona said at a transportation conference sponsored by the Austin Chamber of Commerce. We are headed toward the edge of a cliff in transportation funding in the state of Texas.
We have a transportation need that far outweighs our resources, he said.
The state has not raised the gasoline tax since 1991, Carona said, and the purchasing power of the current levy of 20 cents per gallon has been eroded by inflation.
The fact is that were living today off of 1991 dollars, he said. The 20-cent tax rate today, which is the state motor fuel tax, is only worth about 14 cents. We have lost six cents of purchasing power just over the passage of time the past 19 years.
