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[quote user="schlimm"] [quote user="Sam1"] Most of the roadway and airways costs in the U.S. are paid for via user taxes, e.g. fuel taxes, license fees, ticket taxes, etc.  To the extent that these taxes or fees are inadequate to cover the costs of the highways and airways, monies are transferred from the general funds to make up the difference. [/quote]  More precisely: For 2004, the FHWA reports that of the $136 Bil. spent by all governments on construction and operation,$106 Bil. was from user fees, or 78%.  The other 22% comes from general funds.  [quote user="Sam1"]High income motorists tend to pay more in user and general taxes than low income users, who in some instances pay no income tax and little general taxes.  Thus, it can be argued that these high income earners subsidize low income motorists.[/quote] Oh really?  Although the contribution of high income motorists is higher for income taxes, the user fees (fuel taxes, license fees, etc.)  are relatively flat taxes which hit poorer, but working people who drive to work disproportionately harder everyday.[/quote] Upper income people tend to buy larger vehicles that consume more fuel than lower income people, although clearly there are exceptions.  Moreover, because they can afford to do so, they tend to drive them more; thereby using more gasoline and paying more in fuel taxes.  This impacts the amount of money flowing into the federal and the state general funds. Fuel taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, etc. are not progressive in the sense that most income taxes are progressive.  But the amount of tax revenue generated by these taxes from rich people is greater than the amount of the tax contributed by lower income people.  Here is a Texas example. A motorist who drives a vehicle getting 20 miles per gallon 18,000 miles per year would use approximately 900 gallons of gasoline.  She would pay $346.50 in gasoline taxes.  A motorist who drives a vehicle getting 28 miles per gallon 12,000 miles per year would use approximately 429 gallons of gasoline.  He would pay $165.17 in fuel taxes.  Clearly, the higher income motorists is contributing more to cover the cost of the highways that she is using.  In all likelihood the high income person would also pay more in those taxes mentioned above that would be deposited in the general fund and could be transferred to a dedicated purpose fund like the highway trust fund.    If the high income motorist had an income of $150,000 per year, the fuel tax bite would be .231 per cent of her income, whereas the lower income person with a median Texas family income of approximately $52,500 would be paying .316 per cent of his income in fuel taxes. 2004 data is dated.  Data for 2008 is available in a variety reports from Amtrak, DOT, FAA, etc.  I load the data into a spread sheet and perform a variety of calculations to measure the impact of the so-called subsidies.
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