One plan would increase that tax by . 12 per gallon within the next two years. The as he taking on the debate take you to the debate on both sides we are asking your sock your thoughts on the your thoughts on the nations roads and bridges. Republicans can call in at you can also catch up with us on all your favorite social media pages, twitter, or email us. A very good saturday morning. Gearing up for what is going to be a busy travel week created an increase of 1. 9 percent in traffic over last year. This report coming out last week. An estimated 41 Million People will travel during the holiday. Nce day 89 of those will be traveling by car. Is 39 Million People using an automobile during the holiday. That means a lot of wear and tear on the nations roads. The mechanism used for funding road repair is on the road to insolvency. Heres the headline from the national journal. There have been some proposals on capitol hill for an increase in the tax. Sayre is what they had to in an editorial this week. We want to hear your thoughts. Would you support an increase with the federal gas tax . Before we get your calls on this topic we are joined by a transportation reporter with the associated press. Explain us how the gas tax is used to Fund Transportation projects and what the proposals are for increasing that now. The revenue from the gasoline tax and diesel tax goes into the Highway Trust Fund. That fund is the main source of federal highway aid to state and productsid to transit transit projects or systems around the country. Latest pushhind the to increase that gas tax . Them a there are several different proposals in congress. Senator murphy from connecticut and senator corker from they would increase the gas tax by . 12 over the next two years. It will continue to rise gradually as the cost of or repairing roads or building transportation projects increases. One is very similar. He would do three annual for sent tax increases, so he would spread it out over three years and it would still amount to a total of . 12. A congressman has another proposal. There are a couple floating out there. Host herea chart is a chart showing federal gas tax rates from 1933 through the latest. You can see the increases over the years. Int last increase happened 19 93 and it hasnt increased since then. How are these proposals being received on capitol hill and by thewhite house . Guest white house is not supporting a gas tax increase afar. They have their own plan for ensuring that the highway fund for the next four years it would increase federal transportation spending. On closing tax loopholes to do a lot of the funding. It does not propose a tax increase. I have to say that so far there is a lot of pressure a lot of pressure on congress to raise the gas tax from transportation advocates to the construction industry, chamber of commerce, all kinds of groups. Resistance a strong to anything that is perceived as a tax increase. How much concern from critics on the Highway Trust Fund is directed in how much money is being spent . How much is spent on other programs like bike programs that i heard criticism of . Guest very little is spent on these alternatives. Is bent on transit. It depends on if they are critical. There was an agreement in the reagan administration. Host is that mass transit guest it is subways, it is does systems, it is that kind of thing. The idea is they take people off the road. Host before we lose you, what are some of the alternatives to raising the gas tax . There have been proposals for more four more tolling. What are the alternatives besides this gas tax rate . Guest you are already seeing a great deal more tolling. There is promotion of public and private partnerships. This tree industry comes up with some of the money to build the road, government pitches in some more, and the industry who roadthis gets to toll the for 5000 years. Host she is a transportation reporter with the associated press. Thank you for getting up with us. Would you support an increase in ourfederal gas tax . Facebook page also has this question. A few responses from the facebook page. Kim shepherd writes you can read all those responses and join the conversation as well. Dan called in from South Carolina on our line for republicans. Good morning. I am up almost every morning watching your show. Job, threel with my to five days a week. It just sounds like these roads are getting worse and worse. Of i used to live in upstate new york. A it takes a lot of maintenance. Tax increase. T a this according to the American Petroleum institute, the combined total of gasoline taxes from state, local, and federal taxes. 35. 15 cents, this is compared to North Carolina at 56. 1 five cents. Have you been watching these proposals on capitol hill . Do you think an increase of 12 sons is about right . My maintenance expenses can be pretty high. I think it is going to be to doo get someone something unless we have some easy way of getting it. I would support it. Go to cliffl waiting in essex, maryland. Good morning. On washington journal bang on washington journal. Caller of most states have lotteries, and most of the lotteries are supposed to pay for education and roads. They are getting us multiple ways. Time we turn around there is a new tax. As far as these toll roads, i think they are bad ideas that ideas. Thats ridiculous. Way tohat is the best pay for roads where you are in maryland . Caller the roads around baltimore are horrible. This is a high tax state in maryland. Things are a lot cheaper and the roads are a lot better. With the way happy things are now . It sounds like you are not . Caller i am not. We are talking about the federal gas tax this morning. Would you support a federal . Ncrease in the gas tax one of the senators is senator don carper. Increase. Enting a he calls raising the gas tax most responsible way to fix the Highway Trust Fund. The that is a tweet from him earlier this week. Tweeted out about this issue of raising the gas tax. Taxaid of raising the gas will not help families succeed, tweeting out a link to the white house being open to a gas tax increase. Finally democrat chris murphy in the senate, he said it is time to admit the emperor has no clothes regarding transportation policy. Modest gas increases have to be on the table. Tois murphy on that proposal increase the gas tax by . 12 over the next two years there would be offsets in that proposal. Fromis a little bit more his joint statement with the republicans that he is working with to push that proposal out to raise the gas tax. Chris murphy writes in his statement this modest increase will pay dividends in the long run and i encourage my colleagues to get behind this proposal. The senator he is working with is corker of tennessee. Here is that joint statement from chris murphy and bob corker. Lets go to joshua waiting in amsterdam, ohio created caller ohio. Theer its a shame how left doesnt see the consequences of their actions. They should get better gas mileage. As cars are Getting Better gas mileage you are not spending as much on the gas. He were not buying as you normally would. My biggest thing is they are being they are paying their pensions premium they shouldnt beginning the big pay. Who gets 37 per hour to load a stop sign. They are way overpaid, their pensions are so much. They should go on Social Security like everyone else. We have to get out of this unionized federal stuff. Back and read let the independence taken over. Host patrick is in nevada on our lines. I was calling into support raising the gas tax. Maybe four cents over three years. I cant remember which senator supports it. Carper would be the senator that put forth that proposal. Grownupse have to be and realize we pay taxes. It is not a sin, it is not a tragedy, it is a fact of life. If you want your roads to work for you you have to pay for them. Since we havent done anything to take care of the trust fund since the 90s it seems like common sense to me. Host how are the roads in reno . It could be better downtown. The nicer neighborhoods get the better treatment. They definitely need to be repaid. Some information from the congressional budget office, looking ahead to projected ifrtfalls in the future funding receipts stay the same, if the gasas tax tax stays the same. It reaches a almost 100 billion shortfall in the congressional bus in the congressional budget office. This proposal to raise the federal gas tax, lots of stories about that in local papers. A National Review online took on this story today in a piece they did advocating against raising the federal gas tax. Pressinge there is no policy reason to increase the tax. The fund has plenty of money to especially if the money were spent more effectively an email writes that is their piece from last the gasinst raising tax. Lets go to john economy from brand very texas on our lines for independents. Thank you for checking my call. The taxpayer actually pays the toll road. As i understood this fourthly, only 20 of the trust fund goes to roads and highways. Said 20 goes to transit projects, the sort of mass transit projects. Caller i would like to know what the money is doing before giving them any more money. Host do you want a full audit of the Highway Trust Fund . Guest i would take that and a heartbeat. Texas, whereis in the taxes for gasoline comes to 38. 4 point four cents. Americants from the the Trillium Institute on gasoline taxes. Steve is up next on indiana is up next in indiana for our line for republicans. Go ahead. Caller it is about 60 right about . 60 right now. Isnt that enough . 59. 21 cents is the combined federal state and local gas tax in indiana. A few tweets on this subject. We are talking about the subject for the next 25 minutes on the washington journal. Do you support an increase in the federal gas tax . Know what roads, conditions, and infrastructure is like in your part of the country. Lets go to baltimore, maryland on our line for democrats. Caller howre you doing . Great show. The a lot of states have already risen the gas tax so individual states have risen the gas tax already created gases over four dollars per gallon in most states. The it is hurt and who have to go to work created it is hurting come hurting companies that have to deliver products. If we have to pass the jobs bill, the jobs bill has a proponent for fixing the infrastructure but they dont want to do that simply because they want to get back at the president. It it is not fair to hurt one person and heard citizens. Him if it passes the jobs bill they dont want to do that. Him we need american citizens. I have nothing against immigrants coming over here and we need american citizens working. If things are Getting Better, they dont mind paying taxes. Americans that were already over here, they need those jobs. We have a District Attorney who spent 11 million on an office. He already had an office. Waste like that that can be used to help us. We are wasting money on some things. On dumb things. Our infrastructure is falling down. Bridges fall, that cost the government even more pivot tax cigarettes even more. Tax cigarettes and alcohol. Host in maryland the state 29. 3 cents per gallon. The federal asked taxes 18. 4 cents per gallon. Lets go to chuck waiting in florida on our line for independents. Good morning. Caller i think the whole price structure needs to be fixed up. The world is awash in oil. Mexico, canada, the United States, why do they still control the prices . Where does the military get all their money to build highways . We are in nation building. Where the hell does all that money come from . Host you say take this money and put it into other Infrastructure Projects . Caller give it to wall street, the biggest socialist program out there. Host what is your thoughts on the use of toll roads to pay these projects . Caller if we get the price where it should be, why should wall street make money off of gasoline . They are not the biggest producers anymore. I dont think the toll roads would be bad. Of we need new highways. Host in florida the combined gasoline taxes is in the higher side of states around the country. Want to point out that on newsmakers this week Senate Republican conference chair john of south dakota joined us and he discussed whether congress should look at a gas tax increase to replenish the Highway Trust Fund. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] a User Fee Program is the most logical place folks are going to end up. Index it after that. Indexing it would help. Of we have more hybrids on the road. At the amountng they have in the past. It is still something that highway users pay for. There are reasons for when you are looking at all the various scenarios and options, if you have to raise revenue to do this it is an option that is being discussed. There are other things being talked about as well. Republicans on the side and some of the democratic side are talking about repatriation, repatriated funds. Getting them to bring it back in the country, tax it at the lower level, that would generate some revenue that would fund things at a time. That is not a permanent solution either. See that entire interview tomorrow at 10 a. M. And 6 p. M. On cspan. Onlineers is available at cspan. Org. Our phone lines are open to take your calls. We want to point out some other headlines from around the country. Includes asked sellers at gm. A total number of recalls for the year has surpassed 30 million vehicles. Talking more about otto mowery it automobile recalls is for the washington journal. The defense of marriage act ruling happened a year ago. He will be talking about that ific later in a roundtable you want to tune in for that. The front page of the washington , binding it to europe is the headline, shrugging off a russian threats in a burgeoning civil war. Ukraine signed a landmark deal all the major papers keeping an i on this situation in iraq. Here it is a story from the Washington Post. Iraq relies on planes to fight isis. They are frustrated with the pace of attacks and deliveries. They desperately try to cobble together to tie al qaeda in inspired insurgents. They are more than 100 iraq he , which were flown to iran during the 1991 gulf war. Of that story is in todays Washington Post bank. In todays Washington Post washingtondays post. Also an editorial on the situation in iraq this morning is the wall street journal. That is in todays wall street journal. We have about 15 minutes left. We want to get your calls on this topic. Would you support an increase in the federal gas tax . Don has been waiting in cincinnati, ohio on our line for democrats. The proposal to take all and local road problems away from washington and send it back to the states, i think it is a great idea. We cant get washington to agree on anything. We have ancinnati very important bridge across the ohio across the ohio river that needs to be replaced. We cant get people in washington to talk about it. Control we have some over the state politicians. Just a comment about what you iid about the middle east, dont understand how we can possibly think at this point that we are going to have any useful impact on what is happening in the middle east. I think if you ask the iraqis to vote about whether ,hey would have the dictator they will certainly vote in his favor. Host staying on the subject of the federal gas tax, your plan was to talk about sending it all back to the states. Of would you do away with the Highway Trust Fund and National Planning for the road system and make it an issue for each states . Caller i think there should be a place for Highway Trust Funds and National Planning but we cant get the folks in washington to concentrate. Possibilitiesbout and big influence in money and washington should be great. This will never happen either, to take the federal gas tax and presently pay send it back to ohio and let the local politicians worry about that. It is never going to happen from washington. Mike is from mount sterling, kentucky on our line for independents. Caller i am wondering how much money has been taken out of the that was put fund in there for the roads to begin with that they use to fight these wars in afghanistan and iraq. Now we have to replenish that with taxes on people. Theyif we replenish it and turn around and say we need to find another war somewhere else . Keep that money where it belongs. They are asking responsible people for more money. We have irresponsible people running this country. The taxes comeky to 48. 5 cents per gallon. Want to read you a bit from the editorial board, a column by reporterestine for the in lansdale, pennsylvania. Talking about this issue yesterday in one of their pieces. He writes the deadline facing congress is not the debt ceiling nor is it spending bills, it is the Highway Trust Fund. In a few weeks states will have to start slowing down or delaying Infrastructure Projects, which is the upset of what we need them to do. That is the piece from lansdale, pennsylvania. Kim, good morning. Caller good morning. Say that inike to my opinion all the politicians make more money than the average working man. Why dont we start at the top and sliding salaries . I feel for certain we can come up with more than enough money to take care of take care of the deficit. Our government does not come back. We give them more than enough money. Manage it correctly. We wouldnt have these problems. Not enoughnk theres money to get from the salaries . Making if they are 80,000 per year like the average man is doing, absolutely. Of lets start cutting pensions. We cant have them as working people. There are no jobs out here. How do they expect us to keep paying and going . Is not the funding but more the management of the project area the here in south florida they are always working on the roads. Barbara is in texas on our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller i am with kim, the republican. I believe they should take back the race the senate the raise the senate has given themselves. Should have the gas tax. Fore is enough money to pay some stuff instead of giving them s