Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Meet the Development Team

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Cato at Liberty


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
January 18, 2013 11:09AM

Getting Highway Numbers Right

By Randal O'Toole

SHARE

"Gasoline taxes and tolls pay for only a third of state and local road spending," claims a report released yesterday by the Tax Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan group. "The rest was financed out of general revenues." According to the group's calculations, users paid just $49 billion of the $155 billion cost of roads in 2010, the last year for which data are available.

I am the first to admit that highways are subsidized. But do subsidies cover more than two-thirds of the costs of roads? No way. The Tax Foundation, which strives to be "guided by the principles of sound tax policy: simplicity, neutrality, transparency, and stability," is simply wrong.

First, the group counts federal aid to states as "general funds." In fact, 100 percent of that federal aid comes from gas taxes and other user fees such as taxes on large trucks and tires.

According to the Federal Highway Adminitration's Highway Statistics table HF-10, the feds collected $35 billion in gas taxes in 2010, of which $29 billion was given to the states for roads. For some reason, the Tax Foundation counts state gas taxes as user fees, it doesn't count federal gas taxes as user fees.

Second, the Tax Foundation fails to count state motor vehicle registration fees, which amount to $33 billion a year and which are mostly dedicated to highways. Almost every state first created these fees as a way for users to help pay for roads.

Third, the Tax Foundation relies on secondary sources for at least some of its information rather than going to the original source. For example, citing a Census Bureau report, it says that state and local governments collected $37 billion in gas taxes in 2010. However, Highway Statistics tables SDF and LDF say that state and local governments received $40.3 billion (net of collection costs) in gas taxes in 2010.

Some of those gas taxes were diverted away from roads by politicians catering to various special interest groups, especially mass transit. But that doesn't mean that users didn't pay those fees. Some people think those diversions shouldn't be counted as user fees. Is a fee paid by users still a user fee if some politician intercepts it for pork before it gets to the use the user paid for? I would say yes, but the Tax Foundation's position isn't clear.

In any case, total federal, state, and local gas taxes, tolls, registration fees, and other fees collected from highway users actually amounted to about $120.4 billion, of which less than $2.5 billion went to collection costs. That would have left nearly $118 billion for roads if politicians hadn't diverted about $25 billion or so to mass transit and other activities. Even after deducting that $25 billion, the remainder is far more than the $49 billion the Tax Foundation says came from user fees.

Since total costs were $155 billion, there still must be a subsidy, right? Not necessarily. State and local governments sold $33 billion worth of bonds in 2010, most of which will eventually be repaid out of gas taxes and other user fees. Yet the Tax Foundation counts these as "general revenues."

Finally, state and local governments received $13 billion in interest on the gas taxes and other user fees they had collected but not yet spent in 2010. The Tax Foundation erroneously counts such investment income as "general revenues."

Altogether, then, users paid $118 billion; interest on their fees brought this to $131 billion; and bonds that will mostly be repaid out of user fees bring the total somewhere close to $164 billion. That's $9 billion more than state and local governments spent on highways, roads, and streets in 2010.

This doesn't mean there were no subsidies to roads. The states did spend about $13.9 billion of general funds on roads; but this is more than offset by $16.6 billion diverted by the states out of highway user fees to transit and general purposes. Congress in 2010 had to appropriate $30 billion to top off the Highway Trust Fund, mainly because it had mandated that roughly that amount be spent on transit out of the fund over the previous several years even if gas tax revenues weren't sufficient to cover the spending (which, after 2007, they weren't).

The real subsidies are at the local level. In 2010, cities and counties spent about $36.2 billion in general funds on roads and streets, while they diverted $1.2 billion in user fees to other purposes. The result is a net local subsidy of about $35 billion, which isn't offset by federal and state user fees that weren't spent on highways.

The way to end this subsidy is to give cities and counties an opportunity to collect user fees for roads. As I describe in my 2012 Cato Policy Analysis "Ending Congestion by Refinancing Highways," the best way to do this is through vehicle-mile pricing.

Whatever reforms you support, it is important to get the numbers right. The Tax Foundation's erroneous counting of federal gas taxes, vehicle registration fees, revenues from bonds that will be repaid out of user fees, and interest on saved user fees as "general revenues" effectively supports an anti-mobility agenda that dominates transportation policy in many states and metropolitan areas.

Related Tags
Government and Politics, Tax and Budget Policy

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
202-842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
  • Podcasts

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org