We Urgently Need to Fix the Gas Tax

The Highway Trust Fund, America's primary source of transportation funding, is expected to go bankrupt by 2015. That makes 2014 a critical year for lawmakers to overhaul the busted gas tax system that populates the trust fund. Considering the pace of Congressional action, it's not too early to get that conversation going, and last week two leading newspapers did just that.

The Washington Post editorial staff embraced two solutions recently proposed by Congressman Earl Blumenauer. The first is simply to raise the gas tax 15 cents a gallon over the next three years then tie it to inflation so it doesn't lose purchasing power. The second is an alternative system that charges a tiny fee for every mile driven (Blumenauer's home state of Oregon has been testing such a mileage-fee system for years).