Lessons for the American Automobile Association from Minneapolis

Editorial Cartoon, David Horsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 09/11/2005.

Lon Anderson, the spokesperson for the Midatlantic chapter of the American Automobile Association, has a short op-ed in today's Washington Post about the need to invest in maintaining the road infrastructure, in particular, bridges. See "Lessons for D.C. From Minneapolis." He does write this:

Locally and nationally, we have neglected our transportation infrastructure for years. Lawmakers at the state and national levels have refused to raise the taxes needed to provide the money for necessary highway and bridge construction and maintenance. While funding levels have stagnated, the numbers of vehicles and miles traveled on our roads and bridges have soared, as has the cost of building and maintaining them. Recently, some funding spigots have begun to open, but the maintenance backlog is enormous.

but he doesn't come out overtly in favor of a tax. Right now the Federal Gasoline Excise Tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. With increased mileage efficiency the tax doesn't necessarily increase with the number of miles driven.

State gasoline excise tax rates. Source: The Tax Foundation.

Also see this blog entry from a couple years ago about the pro-automobility agenda of the AAA, "AAA is an automobile lobby, first, last and always."

Friday's Post has a front page story with this headline, "Bush Rejects Gas Tax To Fund Bridge Repair, Decries Hill Spending." I'd love to see the AAA advocate for a higher gasoline excise tax. See "Acute Pain at the Pump Stalls Gas Tax Revenue," from the Washington Post, 2005. From the article:

Rising gas prices are the latest reminder to officials that the gas tax is no longer sufficient to finance transportation programs. "The gas tax is becoming almost inadequate as a principal source of highway funding," said Martin Wachs, a professor at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Governments have "failed to increase the gas tax anywhere near what they need to maintain its spending power." Wachs noted that some localities are picking up the slack; 23 California counties have voted for sales taxes for transportation.


Editorial cartoon by David Horsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8/10/2007.

From "Gas Prices Breaking Records Every Day," from ConsumerAffairs.com

AAA Mid-Atlantic Government and Public Affairs Director Lon Anderson told a gathering of automobile enthusiasts earlier in the week that big oil is simply “ripping off” consumers. “Where is the hurricane,where is the new international tension,” Anderson asked? “You ask the oil companies that while they are raking in record profits.”