Haslam taking up necessary fight for higher gas tax

Gov. Bill Haslam deserves a hand for the courageous campaign he is launching for an increase in Tennessee’s 21.4 cents-per-gallon gasoline tax — the nation’s 12th lowest — to fix the state’s deteriorating system of roads and bridges.

As reported by our journalistic colleagues in Chattanooga, an aggressive anti-tax campaign is being planned by the billionaire Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity at about the time Haslam plans to tour the state to tout a higher tax rate on fuel.

He also has to answer this question: Governor, if the state has been doing so well economically, as you have said repeatedly while you look over the blueprints for a new state museum and other cool stuff, why are you asking for more tax revenue?

Of course, street and highway improvements are funded by the gas tax, while other state government functions are funded by a variety of other revenue sources.

But that distinction can easily be glossed over by those who assert that the cheaper government we have, the happier we will be.

In fact, the state needs to add a few pennies to its gas tax rate, especially while Congress continues to kick the federal highway funding can down the Interstate. The federal fuel tax rate has languished at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993.

Let’s hope our mild-mannered governor has his game face on for what he has acknowledged will be a “hard sell.” Perhaps he has learned something from his unsuccessful pitch for Insure Tennessee, the proposal to use federal funds to give about 300,000 low-income workers access to affordable health insurance — a casualty of attacks by Americans for Prosperity and others.

One possible selling point on the gas tax hike is embedded in a recent poll by Associated Press-GfK that found a significant number of respondents — 44 percent — prefer living in an urban area with a short drive to work or the opportunity to use public transportation, bike or walk to where they need to go.

Another poll, conducted last fall for the American Public Transportation Association, found 68 percent of U.S. residents in favor of more federal spending on public transportation systems — up by 2 percent from the previous year.

Mass transit now gets only 16 percent of the proceeds from the federal fuel tax. When Congress gets around to a permanent plan for highway funding, that figure should be raised.

There is no question that the environment and quality of life in a city like Memphis would benefit from a larger, more efficient and more reliable urban mass transit system, not to mention rail passenger service to destinations such as Little Rock, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Rebuilding Tennessee’s crumbling streets, roads and bridges is a worthwhile goal. They will last a lot longer if we don’t use them as much.