Time to invest in our roads

President Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan, Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America, is actually pretty good.

Critics rightly point out that the plan is anemic, a mere $200 billion in federal spending when he promised $1 trillion on the campaign trail. And they rightly hit him from the opposite side, too, arguing that it’s too expensive and likely to be funded by increased debt or, worse, cutting essential federal services.

But Trump could solve both problems by pushing for an increase in the federal gas tax, something he has said before he is open to, as a way to support an even larger federal expenditure on roads and bridges in a way that is fiscally responsible.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced in January its support for raising the gas tax for the first time since 1993 by a significant 25 cents per gallon, which would bring the overall federal tax on gas to 43.4 cents per gallon. The Chamber estimates that tax would generate roughly $400 billion in 10 years.

That’s a historically conservative group calling for a tax increase, and Republicans can always defend backing a tax increase by pointing to the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts the party was able to secure last year.

For comparison purposes, President Barack Obama signed a five-year spending bill in 2015 that used existing gas tax revenues and $70 billion in new revenue from the general federal budget to pay for $205 billion in highway projects and $48 billion in transit projects.

There are other things to be cautiously optimistic in Trump’s plan as well.

For starters, he’s offering the money as a carrot to spur boosted state and local investment. Heaven knows our Colorado lawmakers could use a little bit of an incentive to fund the Colorado Department of Transportation’s $9 billion backlog of projects, not to billions in needed money for water infrastructure and billions needed to complete the Front Range’s regional transit system.

Republicans who hold the Colorado Senate and Democrats in power in the House and the governor’s office can’t decide whether there’s enough money in the general fund to direct to CDOT’S needs or if instead voters should be asked to increase taxes. Colorado’s gas tax hasn’t been increased since 1991 and sits at 22 cents per gallon. But as Brian Eason and John Frank reported for The Denver Post, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and other business groups are backing a proposed increase to the sales tax (a less regressive tax that isn’t hurt by fuel efficiency and electric vehicles) to fund up to $5 billion in projects.

Trump’s plan also promises to reduce the amount of time necessary for federal approval of a project. One only need to look at the years that Colorado has been waiting for Interstate 70 to be repaired, widened and modernized east of Interstate 25 to know that the process is too cumbersome. He wants to encourage more public-private partnerships similar to the privately owned toll lanes on U.S. 36 and the company that built and runs RTD’S commuter rail lines. Those types of plans are good where feasible and only if public financing isn’t available, but should not and cannot be relied on to solve all of our infrastructure woes.

We are concerned there’s too much division of the limited pot of money. Trump wants $50 billion to go to rural communities, $20 billion to go to “transformative projects,” $20 billion to fund public activity bonds or other subsidized financing tools for major complex projects, and other money for infrastructure needs on public lands.

At the end of the day that leaves precious little money — $100 billion — for the priorities already established by states across the nation.