Title: Highway Trust Fund Basics: A Primer on Federal Surface Transportation Spending | The Heritage Foundation
Headings: Highway Trust Fund Basics: A Primer on Federal Surface Transportation Spending
Highway Trust Fund Basics: A Primer on Federal Surface Transportation Spending
Highway Trust Fund Overview
Condition of the Nation’s Roads and Bridges
State Action on Transportation Funding
Proposed Approaches to Address the Highway Trust Fund Budget
Conclusion
Authors

Content: If necessary, the Department of Transportation can take measures to continue disbursing funds until approximately the end of July. [ 1]
In recent years Congress has routinely addressed the Highway Trust Fund shortfall by transferring money ($62 billion since 2008) from the general fund. However, these bailouts are not a viable long-term solution and indicate that federal highway funding requires extensive structural reform. [ 2] This paper gives an overview of the Highway Trust Fund, its role in transportation funding, and the current state of its finances. Highway Trust Fund Overview
The Highway Trust Fund collects and distributes money dedicated to federal highway and transit projects. The federal government provides roughly one-quarter of public spending on highways and mass transit, mostly in the form of grants to states. States and localities fund the remainder. [ 3] The trust fund is funded primarily by the federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, which are 18.3 cents and 24.3 cents per gallon, respectively. [ 4] The gas and diesel tax rates have not changed since 1993, and account for 90 percent of the fund’s revenues. [ 5] The remainder comes from taxes on tires, trucks and trailers, and certain kinds of vehicles as well as interest credited to the trust fund.