As our roads crumble, Congress plays games

Who says our current crop of U.S. senators and representatives on Capitol Hill cannot be labeled champions? As they once again deftly illustrated last week in failing to enact a productive, responsible and comprehensive transportation bill, our federal lawmakers continue their reign as title-holding players in their popular – but cowardly – game of kick the can.

Sadly, American taxpayers remain big-time losers as their infrastructure continues to crumble beneath them.

For the 34th time since 2009, the House and Senate last week approved a short-term stopgap patch job to address the critical needs of our nation’s roads, bridges, transit systems and other decaying foundations of our infrastructure. Then they skipped town for a monthlong summertime timeout.

The new $8 billion stopgap measure that robs other elements of the federal budget will avert a nightmarish shutdown of federal road projects nationwide, but it does nothing to deflate the growing $180 billion deficit in the Highway Trust Fund or to lessen the angst and expense of American motorists.

That anguish and expense are real. According to a June 2015 analysis by TRIP, a national transportation research group, 24 percent of Ohio’s major roads and highways have pavements in poor condition, while an additional 41 percent are rated in mediocre shape.

In addition, the group estimates that such inferior road conditions typically add $515 a year in operation and maintenance costs for drivers caused by the beating our vehicles’ suspension system and tires take, not to mention the significant losses in efficient gas mileage.

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES

On a broader avenue, the entire state and federal economies suffer as the increasing costs of moving goods and services over poor roads ultimately inflate the cost of those goods and services. Our cracking infrastructure also rises as a dead end for potential economic development.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Congress has had several options before it that offer viable long-term solutions. All that is lacking is the will to engage in meaningful debate and resolute action.

One proposal calls for creating a lasting and deep funding stream through tapping a potentially huge pot of new infrastructure-targeted revenue from a tax overhaul on corporate profits earned overseas. But there is no consensus on the details of the corporate tax changes, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has repeatedly tried to dampen support for that approach.

INCREASE GAS TAX?

U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, has another sensible idea. He has introduced a bipartisan bill – The Bridge to Sustainable Infrastructure Act – to increase the federal gas-tax rate and index its growth to inflation, but it also leaves the option open for Congress to find another long-term stable alternative solution. This fair-minded user tax has not been increased since 1993, when a gallon of gasoline cost $1.16 per gallon and America’s fleet of vehicles was far-less fuel-efficient.

A dozen states in recent years have used the logic of that proposal to increase or plan to increase their own gas taxes with little backlash from consumers or political damage to those who implemented them.

Some of the inaction clearly is political. In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama outlined a $478 billion program to rebuild and upgrade our roads and bridges financed by closing tax loopholes on overseas corporate profits. We strongly supported the initiative then and continue to do so now. But like most Obama-inspired projects, the GOP leadership considered it dead on arrival.

A multitude of options are there for the taking to refill the nearly bankrupt Highway Trust Fund and to make it a viable vehicle once again for the nation’s infrastructure needs. All that is lacking is the will of Congress to act.

Once its fall session begins next month, Americans ought to demand that legislators start acting maturely and responsibly and stop playing kick the can, hot potato and other unseemly political games that do nothing but hasten the destruction of our infrastructure.