Gas tax increase wolf in GOP clothing

If John Thune and James Inhofe want it: be very afraid.

You do not have to be a U.S. senator to know that our roads, bridges and even dams are falling apart from a lack of maintenance. It may interest you to know that foreign aid has gone up every year since the financial crisis and that foreign aid is exempt from sequester. The operating budgets for the State Department and its foreign aid arm, the U.S. Agency for International Development, are also exempt from sequester. Therefore, we have had plenty of money to fix and build infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not for our homeland. Now that plunging oil prices have lowered the price of gasoline and given the working people of the U.S. a real tax cut, Sen. Corker, a Republican, wants to raise the federal gas tax. Of course, the gas tax is a regressive tax and, as such, it would be more acceptable to a Republican. The Corker has been hanging around hoping that the Republican Party that has seen him on CNBC will wake up to his brilliance and will draft him as their presidential candidate. [Matt Horween]