Friday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg addressed President Joe Biden’s next big focus after signing the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which appears to be passing an infrastructure bill.
Buttigieg pointed out on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the gas tax has not been changed since 1993, meaning it has not been adjusted for inflation. He suggested it is a “medium-term solution” to pay for infrastructure.
“I’ll tell you — I’m talking to Republicans in the House and Senate just about every day. They are just as excited as the rest of the American people about what we can build, what we can repair, what we can do for infrastructure, because, you know, everybody here represents a home state or home district that needs the work,” Buttigieg explained. “But we have got to come to terms on how to pay for it. Now, the real question is, how much of this should be paid for with revenue that is raised as part of the vision for the bill? And there are a lot of different ways to get at that.”
He continued, “You know, historically, for example, we’ve mostly relied on the gas tax in order to fund our highways. But the gas tax hasn’t been adjusted since 1993. It was never pegged to inflation. At best, that’s a medium-term solution because as electric vehicles come onto the road, people are going to use less gas anyway. So we’ve got a lot of decisions to make, there are a lot of different ways to do it. And I will say this about infrastructure investment. Unlike what was promised in the past about things like tax cuts for the wealthy, when you make an investment in infrastructure, it really does pay for itself. It has a return on the investment. And I do think that ought to be part of the math as we are thinking about the finances here.”
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