Cut the gas tax? Great. Now there’s less money for your roads.

Get rid of the gas tax.

Sounds great, right?

Guess what it pays for? Roads.

Every Republican running for office loves to say “cut taxes.” Almost none of them tell you what those taxes are doing. So let me tell you what the gas tax does, and why it matters for every road in this district.

Here’s how road money works:

Most federal road money comes from one pot. It’s called the Highway Trust Fund. It’s filled by the federal gas tax – 18.4 cents a gallon – and that money gets sent out to the states by formulas written into law. Tennessee gets its share, TDOT puts it to work, and some of it reaches cities and counties. Kill the gas tax and don’t replace it, and you get even less money to fix the ones you’ve already got.

And that pot is already running low.

The gas tax hasn’t gone up since 1993. Cars go farther on a gallon than they used to. More people drive electric cars that don’t buy gas at all. And the cost of building a road keeps climbing. So the fund keeps coming up short of what Congress promised to spend.

For years, both parties have covered the gap with other tax money instead of fixing the real problem. That’s not a Republican thing or a Democratic thing. That’s a Washington thing. And it’s a big reason our roads keep falling behind the money meant to fix them.

Here’s why this matters right now.

The federal law that runs all of this expires September 30, 2026. Congress has to pass a new one to set the funding and the rules for the next several years. The House Transportation Committee has already moved a bill – the BUILD America 250 Act, a five-year plan worth around $580 billion. How much Congress puts in, and how it gets split up, decides what a state like Tennessee has to work with for the next five years.

So what would I actually do with a seat at that table?

Fight for funding formulas that don’t shortchange West Tennessee and Memphis.

Help our towns and counties compete for every federal road dollar they can get – the grants for bridges, road safety, freight, and repaving.

And use Community Project Funding – the earmarks that let a member name a real local project and steer money to it. They don’t replace the big formulas, but they can move a high-priority project that would otherwise wait years.

Roads are important to me – because everyone uses them – and that’s what our tax dollars should be helping.

Cutting the gas tax without replacing it doesn’t fix your roads. It just leaves less money to fix it with. The people who tell you taxes are always the enemy almost never tell you what those taxes pay for.

I will.

Sources

1. Tennessee Municipal League – Transportation Funding (federal gas tax rate)
2. Sycamore Institute – 6 Facts About Road Funding in Tennessee
3. Federal Highway Administration – IIJA Funding and formula apportionments
4. Congressional Research Service – Highway and Public Transportation Funding Under the IIJA (R47573)
5. IEDC – Update on Surface Transportation Reauthorization (BUILD America 250 Act)