The Future of the Highway Trust Fund

One of the most important transportation policy reports I’ve ever read is the recently-released “Last Exit: Options for Fixing the Highway Trust Fund While Solvency is Still Solvable.” It was researched and written by Jeff Davis and Rebecca Higgins, highly respected transportation analysts at the Eno Center for Transportation. (https://enotrans.org/the-last-exit)

As the authors document, the current Highway Trust Fund model is far from being sustainable. Due to Congress’s long-term failure to increase federal highway user-tax revenues and ever-increasing “bailouts” by increasing the national debt, this system is heading for disaster when the current funding model collides with the projected insolvency of  Social Security (2032).

Davis and Higgins then walk the reader through an array of potential alternatives for fixing the ailing HTF. These include reducing spending to the level supportable by projected federal user-tax revenues (mostly gasoline and diesel taxes), increasing user-tax revenues to match Congress’s desired spending levels, or continuing annual borrowed bailouts, which will be impossible when Social Security reaches insolvency six years from now.

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