Should New Hampshire Increase the Gas Tax?

By Jim on November 20th, 2008

Somebody over on NH Insider touting a gas tax increase:

New Hampshire’s major revenue source for state highway and bridge work is the gasoline tax. It is sobering to compare how gas taxes have fared compared to highway costs. In fiscal 2000, the state collected $116 million in gas taxes, so we would have been able to pay for more than 11 Memorial Bridge-sized projects that year. In 2008, the state collected $137 million in gas tax money, but because of cost increases this would barely cover the cost of two projects the size of the Memorial Bridge. The Memorial Bridge is not an isolated example. Throughout the state, highway construction and maintenance costs are rising rapidly because of the increase in cement, steel, and petroleum prices, while the money to pay for them is flat.

Because of the lack of money, the state’s infrastructure planning process is in disarray. Our ten-year construction plan grew to be more than 35 years long because of costs increases before it was pruned last year. Regional planning commissions are told not to bother submitting new road projects for state funding, as the money simply isn’t available. Needed improvements don’t get scheduled, and scheduled projects get delayed. One example is in my town of Greenland, where a dangerous intersection on state Route 33, notorious as an accident site, cannot be made safer because the money to do so simply isn’t available.

So should we increase the tax the way this guy wants to? Hell no! The legislature is diverting money from the gas tax fund into other things. Until that stops completely there is NO WAY any increase in the gas tax should even be thought about seriously by anybody.

And another thing…right now gas prices are way down. But it’s anybody’s guess how long that will continue. Adding a greater financial burden to driving is going to hurt working people as well as New Hampshire’s tourism industry.

Cut the spending down and make sure that ALL money collected for the gas tax goes to roads and bridges.