Restoring Trust in the Highway Trust Fund

This paper argues for a return to using the Highway Trust Fund to pay for highway maintenance and construction, instead of using it for non-highway programs such as land-use planning, passenger trains, public transit and energy subsidies. As the nation has pulled away from the users-pay/users-benefit funding mechanism (dedicated fuel taxes) which enabled the interstate highway system to be built, highway infrastructure has suffered. The paper promotes the case for highway user fees, indicating the it is fair, proportional, self-limiting, and predictable as a revenue stream.