Gas Taxes and Hammers

What do gas taxes and hammers have to do with each other?  A metaphor of sorts.

You have probably heard – and maybe used – Maslow’s famous line: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

I have a variant: “If you are forbidden to use a hammer, driving in a nail with a monkey wrench or a tire iron can be considered creative carpentry.”

My analogy, as you probably guessed, is to avoiding the obvious choice for raising transportation revenues – the gas tax – in favor of  “innovative” and “outside-the-box” solutions. 

As the reauthorization debate proceeds, we will observe the entire Congress rummaging through the garage for monkey wrenches, tire irons, old shovels, and pieces of scrap metal rather than picking up a hammer.