November 2023

Rethinking the Highway Trust Fund, Part 2

Robert W. Poole Jr. Director of Transportation Policy, Reason Foundation

Last month I discussed the House Transportation Committee’s October hearing on the looming insolvency of the federal Highway Trust Fund. I reviewed three questions posed by Jeff Davis of the Eno Center for Transportation:

1. Should the users-pay/users-benefit principle be continued?

2. If the federal government retains that principle, what transportation functions should be covered?

3. How should we raise enough money from users to properly cope with future needs?

In this column, I will provide my answers to these questions, and then underscore why it’s time to start planning for major change.

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