Highway Trust Fund (gas / fuel tax) under attack by Republicans

Republicans continue to claim a need to reduce the deficit yet at every turn they do things to the contrary. Their new idea to reduce the deficit? Steal money from the Highway Trust Fund to fund other programs that they do like. So how does that reduce the deficit? It doesn't.

The fuel tax like Medicare and Social Security are targeted taxes that when collected only go to pay for the programs they tax for. Imagine if your SS payments when to fund welfare. Think of the outcry. We are already underfunding the maintenance of our roads and stealing money from the Highway Trust fund will only make things worse. Additionally, less money for roads means less infrastructure spending and less jobs. Not exactly what Republicans ran on this fall.

The claim is that there are no sacred cows when looking to cut the budget. That is fine but this tax was put in place to specially fund the roads. It was a tax increase. If you would like to cut money from the Highway Trust Fund then cut my taxes by lowering the gas tax. If you don't have enough money to fund another program then increase taxes accordingly. This tax is completely independent of any other taxes and therefore does not qualify as a sacred cow. Military spending is spending using general fund money. Refusing to cut military spending (actually military spending was increased by 13%) is having a sacred cow because that is discretionary spending. The Highway Trust Fund is not.

This is why the Highway trust Fund had been solvent for it's first 50 years until Republicans changed the rules forcing the Trust Fund to act like the irresponsible Americans that Republicans love to chastise. In 1998 Republicans forced the Highway Trust Fund to spend all of the money it gets. This was fine until the recession hit and funding dropped drastically. Instead of having a rainy day fund as it did before Republicans changed the rules, the Highway Trust Fund became a spend everything you make entity. It's almost like the Republicans wanted the Fund to fail. And stealing money from it now to save military contract jobs in their states only proves that Republicans say one thing and do another. Adding to the Deficit in the name of tax cuts for the super rich while cutting already low spending on the roads that working Americans need.