LaHood weighs in on gas tax upon joining infrastructure coalition

Building America’s Future, a bipartisan coalition of elected officials whose goal is raise awareness about the need to invest in U.S. infrastructure, named former Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as a co-chair. LaHood joins former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, both of whom are also co-chairs.

According to the Building America’s Future website, Bloomberg and Rendell founded the organization with former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The organization gives LaHood another platform to speak his mind on infrastructure issues.

LaHood spoke his mind on the continued need for an infrastructure investment Jan. 8 during an event introducing him as a co-chair of Building America’s Future. LaHood laid out how he would address the nation’s pressing infrastructural need.

“My recommendation is Congress should raise the gas tax 10 cents a gallon and index it,” said LaHood, who’s been vocal about the gas tax as a solution since leaving the Obama administration, according to the Huffington Post “I think what the Congress ought to do is look at what the states are doing. Just about every state or city that has had a referendum to raise the sales tax one penny or whatever, they almost always pass. So if people are afraid that the electorate is going to heap some kind of retribution on them if they raise the tax, they need to look at cities and states that have done it, where it has passed.”

“We don’t have the money now to do all the things we need to do to get back to being number one [in global transportation rankings], to put friends and neighbors back to work, and to get our infrastructure fixed up,” LaHood continued.