the march as a symbol of peace. thank you for watching al jazeera. i'm del walters. you can check us out 24 hours a day for updates by going to our website at www.aljazeera.com where the news never stops. >> ray: the highway trust fund, the money that is supposed to keep our roads and bridges repaired is set to run out of money in months. the tax fee to that feeds the fund has not been raised in 25 years. now what? that's the "inside story."

>> ray: hello, i'm ray suarez. bosses have told me over and over don't over do it on the numbers. people can't follow them, but some stories require numbers, no way around it. consider it the pile of money meant to pay to maintain the country's roads and bridges, the highway trust fund is replenished from the federal gas tax. that tax has not gone up in a generation. 21 years in which gas and highway repairs both got more expensive. inflation ate away as the $0.18 price of tax, and found ways to use less of it. no need to break out the green eye shade and play accountant, it's clear those numbers don't work. it's start to go look like it's not just the numbers that don't worry but our politics, too. crisis after crisis in recent years has been resistant to

endurable, long-term solution. with the highway trust fund close to spending it's last buck congress has prepared a patch that just might get us to the end of the year. >> reporter: by august first the highway trust fund will not pay all the bills. with the summer days approaching, the days left to fix it are running short. the congressional budget office said that more than a quarter of lea jobs and mass transit projects will see a drop in spending if something is not done. at the white house vice president joe biden voiced his concern over getting the financing gaps filled. >> if congress does not act by september on the highway trust fund states will have to defer, delay or halt 112,000 active highway projects, putting at risk nearly 700,000 jobs.

and good paying jobs. >> reporter: the u.s. highway and means is looking for a stop-gap to raise that money for tension smoothing which allows employers to delay contribution to pension plans. that generates more tax dollars. the senate environment is proposing a six-year transportation plan. senator barbara boxer said that the house short term fix is not the answer. >> when you look at the hoe trust fund it's been one of the most successful of funds because it has an user fee, and we have an user fee for it. tom is an expert on all of this, and there are many people who think, including senator murphy, and harper and i would go along with this. that gas tax, that's an user fee. >> ray: but few on capitol hill

are willing to get behind a gas tax increase. that's how the highway trust fund gets it's money in the first place. it has not been raised since 1993, and it's not tied to inflation. the gas dax is $0.18 per gallon. if you increase the tax, the highway fund would grow by $1.4 billion. the average american paid just $100 a year in gas tax. gas fund taxes are dropping because cars are more efficient and people are driving less. president obama has put forward a $402 billion transportation bill that would add money to the trust fund by closing tax loopholes. >> no laws are broken. we're just building roads and bridges like we've been doing for the last, i don't know, 50-100 years. so far house republicans have refused to act on this idea. >> reporter: but president

obama's plan also makes no mention of the gas tax. both parties are avoiding it because any tax is a tough sell. in this political environment, and even more so in this year's midterm election year. maybe you've seen the problem firsthand. in a lot of places the transportation infrastructure is inadequate, period. and the choices are few. raise the money to pay for repairs and capitol spendin capital spending. let's the states pay the fix on their own or let it all wake. the united states seems unable at the moment to do any of them. the federal gas tax, this time on "inside story." joining us for that conversation, john robert smith, chairman of transportation for american. casey, the senior managing director of the american society

of civil engineers, and diana, a former. chief economist for the u.s. department of labor now with the manhattan institute. john robert smith, let me start with you. if it hams on august first, they open the cu cupboard of the trust fund and there is money left in it, would anybody see any difference, streets, trains, stations of america, for weeks after that? >> yes, i think you'll see immediate consequences to that, first in the construction trades, the trades that build transportation infrastructure. right now your state dots pull back projects all right. the state of arkansas has listed 60 million projects that they planned to build but those are now pulled back because of this uncertain funding, and certainly without anything done, it won't be just arkansas, it will be 50

states who will begin to pull back projects because they won't have the funding to le for those projects. the contractors will begin to down size crews. they won't be able to sustain crews for the future. and it's not just the construction jobs. there will, ramifications of jobs that are ancillary to the construction industry. they'll have reserves that they can liverpool forward, but then they'll hit the cliff. everything that they'll pull back will take quite some time to ramp up if it's pulled back. >> diana,

i know people will continue to buy gas after august 1st even if more money is going out than what's coming in, why does it get driven down to zero when americans are constantly buying gasoline. >> first of all, it probably won't run down to zero, but it will run down to a small number because there is an inconsistent flow of funds in. but that amount is not sufficient to may for all of america's roads. we've been putting in general revenues into the hay trust fund to supplement the fund. >> ray: so using basic revenues. >> government tax revenues. but recently with congressional revenues being in a crunch congress is not willing to put germ revenues into the highway trust fund. that's why we need to find another source of money. we need to increase the gas tax

in order to replenish the fund. it's very important, as we just heard, for drivers to be able to have the roads that they need, we need good roads. we need good bridges. and if they're not going to evolve to date, and if each state raises it's own money for highways and bridges, and it doesn't look like congress is going to do this, to raise gas tax for motorists drive on the roads that they want to drive on. we have roads. we need to pay for them. >> it's been happening at the wholesale level and retail level but with the expectation that

weather , and washington is going to be a good partner in there, and not just let this trust fund completely dry up. >> because of the sensitivity in price and the role taxes play, state legislature has been allergic to raising taxes an. >> the states are feeling the pitch. virginia did it after 27 years. they had not really done anything major. pennsylvania has, new hampshire, wyoming, we're talking red states and blue states that are doing this. but the situation with the highway trust fund as your set up piece showed nicely, it's

lost purchasing power, and we've reached kind of a political vortex here where it seems difficult to even have kind of calm adult conversation about restoring the highway trust fund. >> ray: luckily we can have the calm, adult conversation here, and john robert smith , how come governors aren't willing to say to people, sit down, campfire style, look, everyone wants and needs roads. our railways are falling to pieces. the intermodal areas that are covered by this where people switch from rail to car, car to rail, it's all kind of a mess. we really need to do this. aren't they afraid they'll be punished if they do this? >> well, first of all, on the same passenger rail is not even included, and i think that's a mistake. that's a conversation that the country needs to make, to have an inter connected system,

choices for our system. that's what the 21st century is going to demand. to the point, the running past 8 years $40 billion from the general fund has been put in to the gas tax trust fund just to keep it even. that's how much we have lost. just going to the gas tax alone. you're going to lose $40 million right off the top and more. we can't even fix the infrastructure that we need--we have 60,000 bridges in this country that are rated instruct actuall structurally deficient, and we travel them every day. we don't have the revenue today to fix those much less the $40 billion hit to it. states are stepping up. seven states have raised taxes specifically for transportation, and of those states, virginia and pennsylvania, have had

elections since then, and those who voted for raising those taxes were re-elected, over 97% of them reelected to office. it tells me when the public understand the investment in transportation, especially when they understand that there is a local voice in the decision-making of how those dollars are spent, then they'll support that. >> ray: when we come back we'll take a quick break. but when we come back we'll talk about how to do this differently so we don't end up in the same fix again. if the gas tax had been at its inception, would we not be

>> welcome book al jazeera america. i'm ray suarez. >> ray: when the federal gas tax was set at $0.18 it was not set for inflation or the rising price of gas. a gallon of gas in 1953 was $1.18.

the average car bought that year cost under $13,000. fast forward, the average price of a gallon of gas is $3.67, and the average car costs about $31,000. the federal gas tax is still $0.18. and if this had been a percentage of a gallon of gas rather than a fixed amount, would we ever have started up with this? >> it's very possible, but on the other hand , we have more fuel efficient cars. so it's not just that the price of gas has gone up but there are more electric cars on the road, and americans are driving less because of the high cost of gasoline. but the roads still need to be maintain ed. if congress were to say we're devolving the highway.

it's up to you, governors , then they would all do that. but if the governor makes legislation for revenue collection , and raises the tax cass, then these expenses have almost been for nothing. we need certainty from congress what it's going to do, and raise the gas tax over the next couple of years and then index it for inflation. it might not be the best option but it's the best right now and most political possible. >> thi possible. >> ray: this sets up an interesting thought. there is something about a national transportation network that you want a national view of

rather than 50 different networks of revenue systems. if this was devolved to states, at the same time would you get what you need?

would you get arkansas roads hitting texas roads in the right way? >> that articulates the issue right there. we're the united states of america. we're not the 50 states of america. if you look at the impact the highway has had on this country, it's been huge. i think we put at risk, we did some economic studies, the failure to act, and it showed between 2013 and 2020 if we're not making proper investments and putting at risk a million jobs and an interest dollars in gdp looking at the bigger infrastructure and all the categories we rated in our report card u.s. is tut putting at risk. >> the abdication of the federal road, it was well established. they realized that the straight states could not possibly develop a system that would move goods, people, and communications across that relatively small country at the time. it was really enforced with issued land grants to build railroads to connect the people in the oregon territory, the california

territory. during the bloodys conflict in this nation ever known, and eisenhower laid out a highway system, and it connected 50 states. and states and localities already have a responsibility when you think of the streets, the county roads, the state highways that join into a national system, and it's secondly, to make that choice is really a cowardly choice at the federal level because it's basically saying i don't want to make the hard choice of raising the gas tax and index it to inflation. i'm going to make that choice for you. >> but states already have the role of maintaining the highways, so we can already go from one state to another. we can see differences in the quality of roads because of the amount of money they spend on maintenance. congress is not going to do that 37 we need to just put that aside. neither is it going to have a

judge on vehicles in terms of vehicle mile travel, which is really the most logical thing to do now that cars are getting more fuel efficient and more electric cars on the road. it would also enable different governments to charge more for going in rush hour and less-- >> ray: i can see the appeal to charge the users, and more again people who hardly use the roads at all? yo how would we do that? you have your odometer spinning. >> oregon did it, and i think with a new authorization, think there will be more robust programs. i agree with diana, clearly we're getting away from taxing fuels to support the system. the emt is the fairest way to do

it, and it has limitless possibility. you could take into account the time of day, certainly parts of metropolitan areas. >> this is a country where you can't get an uniform driver's license without people crying illume mattie. >> you don't have to report the odometer numbers. there i sophisticated ways to report the mileage. it doesn't have to go to the government. you can get a bill like your cell phone bill. it reports the way you want or it could go on your utility bill or it could be collected by the government. there are a number of ways to do this, i think in the future that's how it's going to be done because there are a number of advantages, but congress is not ready for it yet. >> ray: we're going to take a short break, and when we come

back we'll talk about how the big national stake holders on this issue, business associations, labor unions, transportation groups all support a rise in revenue for the highway trust fund, and yet congress can't make it happen. é

fault lines the deported only on al jazeera america

>> welcome bac back. suarez. big interest groups left and right are all lobbying to fully fund highway transportation, but it haven't happened. congress can't do a long-term fix. john robert smith, why is it? they're talking about pension smoothing, which is basically playing games with pension plans in order to avoid and incur certain taxes. >> and ray, i appreciate that congress is finally wrestling with this issue, which we've known was looming since mack 21. we knew it was going to happen. this will get us through a patch

between a three- to nine-month process. but you're right, it's taking ten years of revenue to support three months of expense. you can't do that very long. why are we in this position? one, transportation was never a partisan issue in the past. you covered the projects needed in mississippi, maine and other states and you got the necessary senators and congressmen to take action. we don't have that any more. it's gotten much more harder to put deals together. now you're asking for a deal that will necessitate an increase in revenue because we can't simply have the gas tax as it is present. we need much more revenue. that's back to raising the gas tax, indexing it, and any of

those choices we the consumer ultimately pay them, and i think congress is reluctant. >> ray: casey, i was just on i-95, and i climbed the ladder to the undercarriage of an overpass, and i could put my entire arm through a hole in the structural steel made to build that bridge. office-goers know that. are they simply crossing their kings a fingers as they cross the bridge. >> they do get more attention. >> they're not expecting it to fall down. let's clarify that. >> the bridges, they'll even close bridges as unpopular that will be to protect public safety. but this point three months to nine months, i think the length of time for the patch on the highway trust fund is an important consideration, and i

think congress may have it's best chance to think about this in a clear-headed way after the election and before the start of the next congress. so i think a patch that takes them into december so that eight billion dollars to $10 million scenario keeps pressure on them and perhaps they keep making the right policy decision. >> the tax patch with the fiscal cliff and various other things that have had looming deadlines give you any confidence that they're going to take care of this. >> it is very possible they'll take a patch and take it out of general ref news. they'll call it a repatriatation tax holidays. but that's the wrong way to go. we need drivers to pay for the roads that they use. we need to look at options such as toll lanes. we have them on bu

developed tollways, and people have a choice to choose tolls. someone who wanting to fast , they should be able to pay for the road they want to drive on. >> ray: for them to take some responsibility. >> yes, the reason why we're in this problem, there is a recession, fewer people are driving and the revenues went down. the second is cars are getting more few efficient, and these are long-term things we need to deal with. >> ray: and the appetite for gas for a whole host of reasons may be declining over time. >> and price, $4.05 when i filled up today. >> ray: thanks to all who joined me today. that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." from washington, i'm ray

suarez. . >> misery in gaza, struggling to cope with a great number of casualties from the israeli airstrikes. >> hello, welcome to al jazeera. also coming up, it's being described as a game changer. the u.n. opens syria's border to let aid in. time for change,