About 25% of Highway Fund Doesn’t go to Highways

Robert Poole has a Washington Times article on how federal gas tax money in the “highway fund” is often diverted to other political purposes.

Today, the federal role in transportation includes mandating sidewalks, funding bike paths and creating scenic trails.

As a result, spending exceeds gas-tax revenues and the Highway Trust Fund is broke. Some claim this is because the 18.3-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax needs to be raised. But drivers can fairly put the blame on the fact that 25 percent of gas-tax funds are diverted to non-highway uses.

We wrote about this issue previously, in discussing alternatives to tolling I-80.