From Citizens Against Government Waste
Porkers of the Month
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) Porkers of the Month for proposing a gas tax increase for infrastructure improvements, when tens of billions of dollars in gas taxes have repeatedly been wasted on frivolous infrastructure projects.
The two senators wrote to President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, advocating “that the commission include an increase in the federal tax on gasoline and diesel... by one cent per month for 25 months — a total of 25 cents over a three-year period.”
Currently, the 18.4 cents in federal taxes that Americans pay for each gallon of gas is put into the Highway Trust Fund. In 2005, the last year a highway bill was passed, Congress earmarked $24.5 billion in Trust Fund revenue for 6,300 transportation projects, including the “Bridge to Nowhere,” as well as museums, bus stops, horse trails, and mass-transit boondoggles all over the country.
“The existing gas tax piggy bank, the Highway Trust Fund, funds congressional pork-barrel earmarks. Adding a larger revenue stream to this wasteful system will only result in more tax dollars being frittered away,” declared CAGW President Tom Schatz.
For proposing a wasteful gas tax increase that will really make taxpayers explode, CAGW names Sens. Carper and Voinovich the November Porkers of the Month.
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