[jandrese]

Use taxes cover about 36%[1] of road construction and maintenance, the rest comes out of the general budget. If they were raised to cover all of the costs driving would be unaffordable to many people. Or at the very least Americans would suddenly be interested in small cars again. Some other countries do push more of the burden of road maintenance onto drivers and those countries tend to have far more robust public transit systems.

[1] https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

[bpt3]

That's only for state and local government from what I can tell, and they could offset increases in fuel taxes by reducing things like property taxes if desired. Federal highway spending has almost entirely been covered by federal fuel tax revenue, but a recent ramp up in spending without increasing revenue now has the put the trust fund at risk of depletion.

Americans would suddenly be interested in small cars again, which seems like a win to me, because there's almost nothing that will make them desire public transit despite what some hope for.

[jandrese]

There is another monkeywrench in road funding. Use taxes are mostly from fuel taxes, which electric vehicles don't pay. As the vehicle fleet electrifies that gap will need to be covered somehow.

[bpt3]

I believe most states (mine definitely does) are applying a use tax at registration.

I would be fine with the mileage being tracked at the annual inspection and getting a bill based on that, but it seems like I'm in the minority there.