The Wilmington Morning Star

Editorial Comments From Other Angles

MOTORIST PAYS FOR ROADS
Tampa Tribune

Building of highways in this country has been a major item in construction activity for the past two or more decades. So many old roads have been improved and new highways built that motorists have been lulled into a feeling that the roads over which they travel have come to them as a gift. Few realize they are paying their own way.

This self-satisfaction that the highways are free, except that the other fellow must foot the bill, has enabled tax assessors to pass along claims to the motorists in such a Christmas box form that little opposition has been registered to the seemingly painless method of payment extraction.

Motor vehicle owners of the country contribute annually more than $1,600,000,000 in taxes. Of this amount, some $1,180,000,000 is in the form of special taxes levied on highway users by the state for road purposes. These imposts include motor fuel taxes, registration fees and motor carrier special taxes. The remainder is made up of federal excise taxes, personal property taxes, and taxes on bus and truck operators.

This huge total which vehicle owners pay does not include state automobile sales taxes, or taxes paid on garages, filling stations, bus and truck terminal facilities and other closely related and dependent properties.

Large sums have been diverted from these revenues to other than highway purposes. Records of the public roads administration show that in a recent year $161,413,000 was diverted from state imposts on highway users. The commissioner of public roads, in testifying before the house roads committee, stated that the monies diverted, being more than 10 per cent of the total road revenue, if properly applied, would have cleared all outstanding road debt obligations.

Opposition to the policy of diversion has been definitely expressed in a number of states. In some of these, the public has had an opportunity to voice its disapproval through popular vote on constitutional amendments and referred laws. The results of these votes indisputably point to the conclusion that the public is opposed to the practice when given an opportunity to express its opinion on a clear-cut issue.

Assessment of special taxes against the motorist is, in principal, fair; but arbitrarily to take such a large sum of money each year for other governmental purposes is unfair.

The measure of the farmer's gasoline tax is the distance he lives from his market. That of the salesman, businessman, or laborer is the distance he must travel by automobile in his daily occupation. If that tax is to be used exclusively for the construction and maintenance of the highway over which he travels, it is not inequitable; but if it is diverted to other purposes, it becomes a case of special assessment against a particular class.