The charts, 5 and 6, provide the answer and provide it so definitely as to require no further comment. My colleague, Mr. White, in arguing last week for the application of about one-third of Federal road funds to secondary roads, sought to justify his position by maintaining that secondary roads should receive funds in proportion to the fraction of the Nation's total vehicle-miles of highway travel that are developed on secondary roads. I believe in his principle, while wondering whether there may not have been some mistake in his figures. But if the reasoning is sound when applied to secondary roads as a group, I PROPOSED APPORTIONMENT UNDER H.R. 2426 Source of Data: Motor Fuel Consumption, Public Roads Administration, Table G-2, 1941. CHART 5 submit that it is also sound when applied to the road systems of the different States. So applied, it discredits H. R. 2426, completely. The thought has been brought out by Mr. Hadden and others that there should be a relationship between the contribution of the motorists of the Nation and the amounts spent on the Nation's road plant. It has, indeed, been argued that on account of a reluctance on the part of State legislatures to levy sufficient taxes to meet the road needs of the States, the Federal Government should become a sort of fiscal agent of the States collecting motor-vehicle imposts and making them 2 Alabama 3 Arkansas 4 Wyoming 5 Montana 6 Utah 7 Mississippi 8 Maryland 9 New Mexico 10 West Virginia Il Tennessee 12 Michigan 14 Pennsylvania 16 Idaho 17 Kentucky 18 Georgia 19 Rhode Island 20 New York 21 Indiana 22 Louisiana 23 Nebraska 24. Washington 25 Arizona 26 South Carolina 27 South Dakota 28 Maine 29 Wisconsin 30 New Hampshire 31 Oregon 32 Virginia 33 North Carolina 34 North Dakota 35 Colorado 36 Massachusetts 37 Ohio 38 Vermont EXPLANATION This chart is obtained by dividing the precentage of the allotment of federal funds under H.R. 4170 for each state by the percentage of the 1941 gasoline consumption for the same state. The chart shows a relatively uniform relationship be tween the states, 42 of the 48 states having a ratio between 4 and 14. Even the highest individual ratio is less than three times the lowest individual ratio. This chart is particularly significant because it has been established that for over-all road needs of our main highway federal aid and statea reasonable gasoline consumption provides measure. 39 Illinois 40 New Jersey 41 Missouri 42 Oklahoma 43 Kansas 44 Minnesota 45 California 46 lowa 47 Texas 48 Florida Source of Data: Motor Fuel Consumption, Public Roads Administration, Table G-2, 1941. CHART 6 available for the benefit of the contributing motorists. The collection of gasoline taxes from motorists and the use of them for other than road purposes is called diversion, and is condemned. It is supposed to be unfair to the motorist. I ask you which may honestly be considered more unfair, the taxing of John Doe as a motorist and the use of some of his contribution to educate his children, or the taxing of John Doe as a motorist and the use of some of the money to meet a road need 2,000 miles away, on some road that John Doe has never seen and never will see-and a need, moreover, less acute, if the findings of the interregional committee, the Automotive Safety Foundation, and others who have studied traffic problems are to be accepted, than the traffic needs half a mile from John Doe's home. I do not favor the diversion of highway funds; I believe that road-user taxes should be used for roads. But I have trouble in understanding why the motorist is more abused by taking his motor-tax contributions and using them for some other one of his needs than by using them for the needs-road needs or otherwise of someone hundreds of miles away. There may be a good answer to that which I do not just understand, but I must admit I do not understand it. I think there are two forms of diversion, and if I were in John Doe's place, I might prefer the classical form of diversion to the form that takes my money and spends it, even if it is spent for road needs, where I will never see it again or get any benefit from it. I might have generosity enough-I hope I would have to be quite willing that that be done, if I felt the need to be satisfied by that form of diversion was a greater need than I have, or my neighbors have. But if I felt my own need was as great, or possibly greater than their need, I would feel, and do feel, as a matter of fact, that this use of motor-vehicle tax is a diversion. The CHAIRMAN. I see it is 12 o'clock, and we will continue tomorrow morning at 10. (Whereupon, at 12:03 p. m., the committee adjourned to 10 a. m., Tuesday, March 7, 1944.) FEDERAL AID FOR POST-WAR HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION 1 TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1944 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to notice, for further consideration of H. R. 2426 and H. R. 4170, the Honorable J. W. Robinson (chairman) presiding. STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. COX, STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSIONER OF CONNECTICUT-Resumed The CHAIRMAN. I think we might as well start. All right, Mr. Cox. Mr. Cox. Yesterday at the conclusion of the hearing I was directing the attention of the committee to this chart here [indicating] which compares the apportionment of Federal aid made to the different States with the motor-vehicle imposts placed on the motorists of the different States, the comparisons being for the apportionment provided in H. R. 2436 with that provided in H. R. 4170. I had expressed the opinion that there were two forms of diversion of motor-vehicle revenues, both to be criticized, one being the diversion of road-user taxes to other than highway purposes, and the other form of diversion being the diversion of taxes collected from motorists in one State for the satisfaction of less urgent needs in other parts of the country. Charts 7 and 8 show that there is a great deal more of that diversion under H. R. 2426 than under the provisions of H. R. 4170. While in the address of Mr. Hadden and others there has been reference to the taxes collected from motorists, actually, however, if the Congress votes this $3,000,000,000 authorization, it will not be paid out of the taxes taken from motorists. Federal motor-vehicle imposts appear to be a permanent part of the general Federal tax structure, or at least not subject to discontinuance within the next few years, regardless of what is done in regard to road appropriations. They will not be discontinued immediately, even if Congress should not now appropriate a dollar for roads. On the other hand, if the proposed appropriation is voted and becomes an additional commitment against the already depleted Federal Treasury, the authorized funds will be provided by borrowing and will become an integral and indistinguishable part of the Federal debt that will eventually be paid off through the medium of general taxes. What the Federal tax structure will be over the next generation is impossible to forecast now. The pattern of internal revenue collections in the years ahead, however, will probably not be greatly 98217-44-vol. 1-14 205 |