Who Dreamed Up the Gas Tax?  Published on 7-5-02  During the
Clinton years, when energy prices rose, Republicans demanded
that the federal gas tax be reduced. Today they are singing a
different tune. Dick Cheney says it would be unhelpful to reduce
the gas tax.  Who dreamed up the gas tax?  The gas tax was
devised by Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 as the best way to finance
the building of what was expected to be the largest public works
project in history: the interstate highway system, which experts
said would cost $101 billion.  Eisenhower first raised the idea
of crisscrossing the country with concrete in 1955. But the idea
had died when Congress failed to agree on a funding mechanism.
Wary of defict spending during times of prosperity, the members
were reluctant to embrace a program that would cost the country
billions. The following year Congress settled on a gas tax as
the best means of financing the system. The tax would be
exclusively devoted to road construction.  The tax cost
motorists a few cents when