Lincoln Chafee: “I want to put one thing to bed around here, to rest, and that is that this gas tax has been collected with the people…”

“I want to put one thing to bed around here, to rest, and that is that this gas tax has been collected with the people who are paying it believing it is all going into a highway trust fund. Let me just review the bidding a little bit. Many of us--I certainly was here, the Senator from Montana was on the Finance Committee at the time, I don't know whether the Senator from Texas was. But in 1990, there was a 5-cent-per-gallon tax started; 5-cent-per-gallon tax; 2.5 cents of that was to go to the general fund, 2.5 cents to the highway trust fund. This was no secret. It wasn't something that was slipped over anybody. We all voted for it up or down, knowing 2.5 cents of that 5 cents was going into the general fund of the United States. There is none of this business of coming to the pump, looking at it and thinking that tax you are paying all goes into building highways. Then in 1993, we added a 4.3-cent tax, all to go to the general fund, and that was no secret either. So, Mr. President, I just want to say that this idea that we are somehow deceiving the public by piling up money in the general fund from the gasoline tax is just not accurate, and everybody who was in the Senate at the time--that is everybody here--certainly those on the Finance Committee clearly knew where the money was going to go.”