All Things in Moderation

Morning Report

15 Responses

1. 

   markinaustin, on March 16, 2012 at 8:12 am said:

   Do the NAHB indices seem “slow” to you?

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2. 

   Brent Nyitray, on March 16, 2012 at 8:35 am said:

   @ Mark: Yes because the NAHB focuses on new construction, not existing homes.

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3. 

   markinaustin, on March 16, 2012 at 8:45 am said:

   Ezra Klein presents on my behalf my 47th rant against Congress [both parties and the institution, itself]:

   We’re 15 days out from the expiration of our eighth stopgap — yes, our eighth stopgap — to extend funding for transportation infrastructure. The last long-term transportation bill ended in 2009, and here we are, three years later, with no replacement.
   It looked, this week, like perhaps we had finally broken the impasse when 72 senators joined together to pass the Boxer-Inhofe transportation bill. But Hill staffers tell Politico that the House won’t take the Senate bill up before the end of the month. Which means, yes, a ninth transportation stopgap. A ninth bill that doesn’t give states any predictable framework in which to make long-term investments. A ninth failure, in other words.

   Congress, sometimes you guys are an embarrassment.

   And so long as we’re taking the dim view here at Wonkbook, let’s just be honest about it: Boxer-Inhofe won’t solve our transportation problems, either. It’s much better than nothing, of course. And it’s better than yet another stopgap. But both on the spending and funding sides, it’s inadequate.

   On the spending side, it only lasts for two years — the House wants a five-year bill, as does the White House — and, at $109 billion, it’s only about two-thirds the size of the president’s budget request for infrastructure, which was, in turn, smaller than what most infrastructure experts thought was needed.

   This is a bad time to do a half-measure on infrastructure. We have literally trillions of dollars in unmet infrastructure needs. We have massive unemployment in the construction sector. Materials are unusually cheap because of a depressed global economy. Borrowing is unusually cheap because we’re one of the few safe havens left in the global financial market. And it’s cheaper to repaid an aging bridge today than rebuild a crumbled one 10 years from now. So waiting to do the bulk of our infrastructure passing a half-measure on infrastructure investment later is like waiting till after the big sale ends to buy your groceries. It’s just bad financial planning.

   Further, as my colleague Brad Plumer reports, Boxer-Inhofe does nothing to stop the Highway Trust Fund, which is paid for by the federal gas tax, from going broke. There are all sorts of reasons the fund is going broke — more fuel-efficient cars, the gas tax isn’t indexed to inflation, etc — but the bottom line is that the primary mechanism we use to pay for infrastructure in this country is in crisis. President Ronald Reagan, you’ll recall, actually raised the gas tax to fund his infrastructure bill, and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) offered an amendment to index the gas tax to inflation in this bill. But that amendment was defeated, and so rather than actually fixing the Highway Trust Fund, we’re exhausting it, and patching the rest of the bill with one-time pay-fors and gimmicks. So the central problem in transportation funding — the problem that has arguably led to these nine stopgaps — will be left for another day.

   Boxer-Inhofe is a lot better than doing nothing. It’s a lot better than another stopgap. And Sens. Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe deserve credit for actually moving a bipartisan infrastructure bill through the Senate. But it’s a reminder that, these days, even when Congress does get around to doing its job, it doesn’t do it particularly well.

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4. 

   Kevin S. Willis, on March 16, 2012 at 9:50 am said:

   President Ronald Reagan, you’ll recall, actually raised the gas tax to fund his infrastructure bill, and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) offered an amendment to index the gas tax to inflation in this bill.

   Reagan may have done it, but there is no political will to raise the price of gas at the pump by increasing fuel taxes. For good reason, as most anyone who supported it would be handing their opponents a cudgel with which to beat them in the next election.

   I think of a lot of existing money is spent on stuff that would better be spent on infrastructure. I’d only sign on to indexing fuel taxes to inflation if it was accompanied by a federalization of fuel standards, so that gasoline standards were federal, rather than regional, so there was no need to refine (and no restriction of moving) gasoline to different regional formulations. And some sort of initiative to increase or refinery capacity.

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5. 

   bsimon1970, on March 16, 2012 at 11:21 am said:

   ” there is no political will to raise the price of gas at the pump by increasing fuel taxes. For good reason, as most anyone who supported it would be handing their opponents a cudgel with which to beat them in the next election.”

   That is not a good reason. It is a terrible reason & contributes to the problem by ignoring the basic fact that it costs money to maintain the infrastructure we have.

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6. 

   yellojkt, on March 16, 2012 at 11:27 am said:

   If the gas tax were a sales tax instead of an excise tax, there would be no need to index it as it would automatically adjust for price changes.

   And while a dedicated revenue stream is a decent idea, money is fungible. As it is, a lot of the gas tax is bled off to the earmarks and other general ledger types of things.

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7. 

   bsimon1970, on March 16, 2012 at 11:41 am said:

   I would suggest that the gas tax should be indexed to the cost of building roads, not to the political (in)stability in the Mideast.

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8. 

   yellojkt, on March 16, 2012 at 11:54 am said:

   bsimon,
   Valid point. The problem with all indexes is what to link them to. Since money is fungible, why do we need a Highway Trust Fund anyways? I approve of fuel taxes as a users tax for maintenance but other sources are perfectly valid as well, especially since transportation related taxes are regressive.

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   • 

     ScottC, on March 16, 2012 at 12:29 pm said:

     yello:

     I approve of fuel taxes as a users tax for maintenance

     If you mean maintenance of roads, a fuel tax is not a users tax. A toll would be a users tax.

     …especially since transportation related taxes are regressive.

     How so?

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   • 

     markinaustin, on March 16, 2012 at 12:37 pm said:

     yjkt wrote:

     transportation related taxes are regressive

     Do you assume that, or is there an analysis of the tax upon which you rely? Are gasoline taxes more or less regressive than highway tolls? Than personal income taxes? Than withholding taxes? Than general sales taxes? I do not know. My working assumption is that entities and persons who use more motor fuels can afford more motor fuel tax than either persons or entities that use motor fuels less, or persons who do not use motor fuels at all.

     Someone here may actually know.

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9. 

   novahockey, on March 16, 2012 at 1:21 pm said:

   I don’t have the data at my fingertips, but a gas tax is not necessarily regressive.
   IIRC, it basically came down to lower income poeple owning fewer cars, if at all, and relying more on public transportation.

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10. 

    bsimon1970, on March 16, 2012 at 1:37 pm said:

    ” a fuel tax is not a users tax. A toll would be a users tax”

    Strictly speaking you are correct. However, a gas tax is a reasonable proxy, as heavier vehicles both use more fuel & do more damage to roads.

    The new challenge is in accounting for alt fuel vehicles. Some large fleets are converting to LNG, which I don’t believe includes a road tax. Likewise for hybrids and all-electric vehicles.

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11. 

    novahockey, on March 16, 2012 at 1:43 pm said:

    A gripe about hybrids – I have a VW diesel that gets mileage that’s just as good as hybrid but it doesn’t qualify for the HOV exempton. I also maintain that an hybrids, at least in the DC area, are bought just so you can ride by yourself during rush hour on I-66 or I-395, thus defeating the purpose of the express lanes.

    There’s also reserved parking for “alternative fuels” at various places — I’ve taken to just parking there and saying “clean diesel” if questioned.

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12. 

    yellojkt, on March 16, 2012 at 1:57 pm said:

    There’s also reserved parking for “alternative fuels” at various places

    The alternative fuels parking spaces are a result of LEED Green Building requirements. The original requirement was to provide charging stations for electric vehicles since they needed to be near the building where the electrical service came from. Since they never caught on, the rule was changed just to give hybrid owners a perk rather than out of any real functional necessity.

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13. 

    bsimon1970, on March 16, 2012 at 2:35 pm said:

    ” I have a VW diesel that gets mileage that’s just as good as hybrid but it doesn’t qualify for the HOV exempton.”

    A reasonable gripe. Yota should, in my opinion, be putting a tuned diesel in the Prius. But they never listen to me.

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