Transit labor union: Congress should raise gasoline tax, spend money on us

Low gas prices mean more cash in all consumers’ pockets.

But some members of Congress are talking about using the low gas prices as an opportunity to increase gasoline taxes, and at least one public-sector labor union boss thinks the extra cash should be in his members’ pockets instead.

“Given the recent dramatic drop in gas prices, now is the best time to eliminate the funding shortfalls that have plagued the federal transportation fund for years with an increase in the gas tax,” said Larry Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents about 190,000 public transit workers in the U.S. and Canada.

A one-penny increase to the federal gasoline tax — 14.8 cents per gallon, where it has been since 1993 — would give the government to spend $1.5 billion on transportation infrastructure projects. Hanley said that money should be used to increase mass transit options in cities across the country.

More