Posted on 02/15/2014 3:05:58 PM PST by ilovesarah2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. business and labor leaders urged Congress on Wednesday to raise the federal gasoline tax to prevent a fund that pays for road and bridge projects from running out of money as early as September.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing that allowing the Highway Trust Fund to run dry would slow road building and other infrastructure projects and hurt the U.S. economy.
"These investments not only create jobs but spur economic growth, ensure our country's long-term economic global competitiveness and improve the quality of life of our citizens," said Trumka, who heads the largest U.S. labor organization.
The Transportation Department estimates that the Highway Trust Fund, which relies on an 18.4 cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and 24.4 cents-a-gallon tax on diesel, could run out of money as early as September. The taxes were last raised in 1993.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Doesn’t anyone understand the Wal Mart model? They make billions by making pennies per item.
Likewise, were taxes low enough not to be a big consideration in doing business, people and businesses would actually pay more of them.
In our local paper today, some moron was saying taxes should be 91% on top income earners as it was in ‘46. Does he actually believe anyone who made that sort of money paid that rate? Doesn’t he understand where loopholes come from, who put them there and why they exist? Doesn’t he realize the income tax was originally levied against the top 1%, but look who pays it now? Does he actually believe that anyone making 10 mil would pay over 9 mil in taxes and continue to work hard? Doesn’t “labor” n this article understand that THEY will be paying that tax and absolutely everything will go up in price to pay for it? Don’t they realize businesses are merely tax collectors not payers; we are?
These people are out of their fn minds.
I heard today that the EPA is funded directly and secretly and that Congress has no control over this unique agency.
They built a dog run in my neighborhood. Nobody uses it. But it’sreally nice. Big. Concrete pad, fences, gates dog poo bag dispensers. Damn shame it is crumbling from lack of maintenance and no use. But it’s pretty. Has landscape features around it. I wish somebody would use it. Maybe to race remote control cars? Something.
The government forced auto makers to come up with more fuel-efficient vehicles, thus requiring less gasoline, and therefore less gas tax revenue. Now they want to raise the gas tax. Circular logic at its best.
OMG!
the very LAST thing we need is USA is higher taxes!!!
(find out where Obama stashed the last 7 TRILLION dollars of our money and use some of that for your little projects, guys! Remember, much of that money was promised to be for road building... your nice little special interest area...
so you didn’t get the money you expected, you were promised...and now your solution is to raise all our taxes even further? NO WAY! Go find the last 7 Trillion, ask the White House where its hidden maybe....SwitZerland? some little Caribbean atoll private bank?....it didn’t get spent on anything that benefited Americans, that’s for sure, so go find all that money...its obviously stashed somewhere...for your road projects!)
I always suspected that Thomas Donohue was a seditionist fascist traitor, and today that suspicion has vanished.
900 Billion in shovel ready project money, trillion dollar deficits and now they say there is no money for roads. Where is my pitchfork.
We are past pitchforks. Time for the heavy artillery.
Honestly, the answer to that may be readily apparent to other FReepers, but this is one aspect of the EPA regulations I haven’t addressed before. I can’t honestly say if the sulphur content is important enough to regulate or not. I have not read or heard the pros and cons.
As a general rule, I would like the EPA to go straight to hell, not pass go, and not collect $200 dollars.
Now that’s not to say that there aren’t some things that are important to regulate, but I think it’s safe to say that’s probably less than 1% of what it does regulate. That being the case, I’m sure there’s another government agency out there that could address ‘real’ problematic issues if they pop up.
This POS is an extremely evil human being, extremely evil. I cannot write what I truly wish would happen to this fascist anti-American, anti-Constitutional traitor.
Time to dissolve the union. Let states become autonomous countries or form new multi state countries as they see fit. The viable of the USA is rapidly coming to an end.
I totally agree. I no longer want to be part of “these United States”. There are many states I want no part of.
The current gas tax generates more than enough income to fully fund the highway projects if the politicians didn’t raid it to spend it on entitlements.
If Americans had to sit down and write checks each month for all the taxes we are forced to pay, there would be another revolution. But the way they confiscate our money from us, we hardly even notice.
This isn’t an either/or situation, but rather one of both/and. Let’s all get along!
It is by design, of course.
Isn’t everything? Is there not anyone left on the American’s taxpayer’s side?
I have been against payroll withholding for almost 2 decades now. If everyone had to write quarterly estimated tax payments like the self-employed, we would have a tax revolt in a fortnight.
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