The expenses so far are a little more than $6 per person in six years or approximately $1 per person per year, counting the population of the United States as 110,000,000. If any one is anxious to save this expense it can easily be done by a little economy. Refraining from smoking one cigar a month, from drinking one ice-cream soda a month, from going to three picture shows in a year, or by allowing the automobile to stand in the garage one or two Sundays per year.
Practically each state in the Union could easily collect its share of the match money by a one-cent tax per gallon on gasoline. A score of states have adopted this method and more will, as by this means the land which is highly burdened with general and school taxes will be considerably relieved, and the road tax shifted to the road users. The man who owns an automobile will not thus have the ultimate amount which he pays for roads decreased, but the man who does not own an automobile will be relieved in so far as the gasoline tax is not passed on in the way of increased charges. But the gasoline tax will not appear on the annual tax receipts and therefore is less noticeable.
The answer to the question, “should the states continue to match the Federal Aid dollar?” in the opinion of the writer is, “yes, until the Federal system of 180,000 miles of road is completed.” This ought to be accomplished in about ten years.
Most of the Mid-west and Western states pay into the national Federal Aid fund, as duties, revenue taxes, etc., less than they receive in the way of Federal Aid. These states, therefore, are the gainers in the matching process. Even where there is no financial advantage as in some of the more populous states, there is a psychological advantage in the stimulus which this money gives toward the building of good roads. Good, dependable, 365-days-a-year roads must come. They are demanded by the 10,000,000 pleasure automobile owners and their 30,000,000 additional passengers; they are demanded by the more than 2,000,000 commercial vehicle owners and their 50,000,000 patrons; they are demanded by the man who lounges along in a smooth-riding silent $10,000 car; and they are demanded by the driver of the sputtering, rough-riding, ear-splitting $400 car. Yes, good roads must come, and the Federal Aid movement begun at the behest and in behalf of the farm element will continue even if the burdens of building and maintenance be shifted through the gasoline tax and the automobile license, from the farm and city real estate to the owners and users of motor-driven vehicles. With all these influences working it is not likely legislatures will refuse to match dollars with the Government.
Financing Highway Transportation.
—There are at least three methods of financing highway transportation: (1) Individual; (2) Partnership; and (3) Corporation.
Individual.
—The individual method may be divided into two classes: (1) Those that are a part of auxiliary to or accessory to other business, and (2) those that make up or compose the business itself.
The highway transport lines that are auxiliary to other business may be illustrated by the delivery truck of the grocer, the trucks for hauling to and from the depots of large department stores, or better the trucks owned by creameries which perform a sort of express service for the producers of milk and cream. The Fairmont Creameries, with headquarters at Omaha, operate more than 140 trucks, many of which make regular trips over established routes, picking up at the farmer’s gate full cans of cream and milk and leaving empty ones. The cost of these services, while ostensibly borne by the creamery, must of necessity be accounted for and charged to the expense of doing business or to the individual sellers of cream. The business is not run as a trucking or transportation business, but as a creamery, a department store, or a grocery, and is reckoned in as part of the annual expense or overhead charges. The motor to the truck gardener is of as much importance as any other part of his business. In fact his plant would be as handicapped without it as would a clock without its hour hand. The same may be said of practically all enterprises which depend on transportation upon the highways as a function of their business.
All such transportation, therefore, is financed in exactly the same manner as the business itself, in fact it is a part of it.