What’s the problem with the highway trust fund? After the second time in as many years that we’ve heard it’s going broke, you must be asking that question.

We heard first it was a drop in fuel tax revenue. But then we found out that it was a drop in taxes paid on truck and trailer sales.

Let me throw out another idea. It’s not about the money coming in. It’s about how and where the money comes out.

What about so-called transportation enhancements – the money used for museums, street beautification, and so on. Ten percent of your highway dollars have gone to that for years, plus interest.

And let’s not forget mass transit.

The government loves talking about so-called user fees, where those who use a service pay for it. Yet they have one of the oldest user fees anywhere in the fuel tax, and then they use the money for other things, like mass transit. How about a user fee there? Let the bus riders pay for the bus.

And there’s more. All the federal agencies related to highways are now paid for by the fund, whereas they used to be paid for out of the general fund, which is how the system was designed.

The highway fund is supposed to pay for pavement, not thousands of bureaucrats. Again, use the money for what it is intended for.

Now, if we do want to discuss revenue, fine.

First, the economy’s in the sewer, and when no one buys trucks, no truck sales tax is paid. Duh.

Then we can talk fuel tax. The federal fuel tax, the one that goes into the highway trust fund, hasn’t been raised in years. The last hike in the federal tax was in 1993 – 16 years ago.

OOIDA strongly believes that our highways should be paid for out of fuel taxes, but before that sucker is ever raised, we want to see them spend what they have now responsibly.

As far as I’m concerned, they aren’t being responsible with that money now. And until they do, all this discussion about revenue is just one more case of hitting the wrong target.