Arkansas Congressman says raising diesel tax should be on the table

Increasing the diesel tax to pay for highway maintenance and improvements is “something to be considered” because the trucking industry supports it, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, said Friday.

Interviewed by Steve Barnes on the AETN public affairs show, “Arkansas Week,” Crawford said states need more flexibility in deciding how they spend federal dollars. He pointed to Texas, which has a number of toll roads, which he described as “one of the purest forms of user fee that you could find.”

Tolls generally are not allowed on federal aid highways, and Crawford said he isn’t advocating one way or the other regarding tolls in Arkansas. He said the trucking industry opposes tolling. However, that industry does support increasing the diesel tax, which has not been raised at the federal level since 1993.

“You can’t say that that window of opportunity is going to stay open indefinitely,” he said. “There may be a point at which the trucking industry says, ‘All right, you had your chance. We’re not going to be open to a diesel tax increase anymore.’

“So that’s something that we have to decide. Are we going to take them up on their offer? And are we going to be able to communicate that to a broad audience so that they don’t look at this and say, ‘Well, all you’re doing is raising taxes on people’? But when an industry tells you that they would like to see the diesel tax raised because they want to make infrastructure investments for their own good, that’s something to be considered.”

Congress recently extended the highway funding mechanism until Oct. 29 as it struggles to find money to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, which reimburses states for a portion of their highway spending – in Arkansas, about 70% of total construction costs.

Crawford is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has already authorized a highway bill. However, paying for the bill on the House side would come through the House Ways and Means Committee. He said that committee’s chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, is trying to produce a plan that would pay for a long-term highway bill through tax reform.

The federal motor fuels tax, the primary means of financing the Highway Trust Fund, has not been raised since 1993 and was not indexed to inflation, so it’s worth less every year. Meanwhile, vehicles are becoming more fuel-efficient, so motorists are buying less fuel and therefore paying less in fuel taxes.

Another issue, Crawford said, is that fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle drivers are “driving at a discount” because they pay less in fuel taxes, while those driving electric cars are not paying for the wear and tear they are causing at all. However, he doesn’t like the vehicle miles traveled tax, which taxes motorists according to how many miles they have driven. Some say such a tax represents too much government intrusion.

Elected officials are reluctant to consider raising any motor fuels tax, though those taxes have been raised in some states. Crawford said, “It’s just not something that there’s a broad appetite for at virtually any level. However, this has got to be part of the conversation.”

Crawford said a possible revenue source would be changing the tax structure to encourage companies to “repatriate” money held overseas. He said he likes the idea but warned that one of the proposals to do so could lead to expanded government oversight.

“The other (problem) is that how do you calculate that over time? We don’t know,” he said. “We assume that if we lower repatriation taxes that we’re going to see a huge influx of offshore capital that comes back into the United States and goes to work for us. I’d like to see that happen, but there’s no way to quantify how much that would be.”

Crawford also appeared on Talk Business & Politics on Sunday morning on KATV Ch. 7. The First District Congressman offered his thoughts on several topics including:

• Highways, toll roads, indexing gas taxes. “There’s no appetite for that on either side of the aisle because it’s going to be viewed as a tax increase. Barbara Boxer doesn’t even want to raise the gas tax.”

• Ways and Means controls highway funding at this juncture. Crawford said the powerful House Ways and Means committee “operates like the Intel committee” and that he has not seen details of a plan from Chairman Paul Ryan to fund roads.

• Iran and a possible Presidential veto of a resolution to negate the deal. Are the votes there to override a veto? “I think in the House, yes. I think in the Senate, that’s going to be a tough deal.”

• Presidential politics. “I’m a home guy. I’m sticking with our friend, Gov. Huckabee.”

• His re-election bid in 2016. “I am running for re-election. I’ve got a lot of work still to do.”