The Senate wrestled Tuesday with a short-term patch for the highway fund, and the House passed a $10.8 billion bill last week that would keep projects going through May. But the efforts represent only a quick fix. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that to meet the expected needs for highway infrastructure, the trust fund will require an additional $172 billion over the next 10 years. The good news is that this spending is a bargain, given its propellent effect on the economy and jobs.

There is an immediate need to replenish the Highway Trust Fund to prevent a disaster in the peak construction season coming up. The estimates are that failure to do so will cut federal transportation dollars going to the states by 28 percent, affecting 100,000 projects that employ 700,000 workers, and dealing a serious blow to an economy trying now to recover from the long period of economic downturn and stagnation. The way to do that is to increase the gasoline tax. Problem-solvers Bob Corker of Tennessee and Chris Murphy of Connecticut have proposed a commonsense and modest plan calling for an increase of 12 cents per gallon in the tax, indexing it to inflation. But House Republicans have balked at any tax increase (thanks, Grover Norquist!). And plenty of Democrats in Congress and the White House are fearful of a gas-tax increase right before the election—it is, after all, the most visible federal tax, something most Americans see every time they go to fill up.

Still, given the regressive nature of the tax (wealthier Americans are more likely to have fuel-efficient cars than poorer ones, and spend a much smaller share of their incomes on gasoline), and the continuing improvements in fuel efficiency, the gas tax is not the long-term solution to the problem. Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon has been working on this issue for some time, and he has come up with a constructive and thoughtful approach, embodied in something he calls the Update Act. Blumenauer would phase in a tax of 15 cents a gallon over the next three years—but move to a more sensible and stable source of funding to be put in place by 2024. What would that be? Most likely, it would follow the recommendations of two commissions that addressed these issues in 2008 and 2009, both of which called for examining mileage-based user fees as a replacement for the gas tax. A fee of 2 cents a mile would raise the same amount as a gas tax of 15 cents a gallon. Gas taxes are actually rough-cut mileage fees; you drive more miles, you use more gas. But gas taxes are a greater burden on those who drive heavier and less fuel-efficient vehicles, which means it hits the poor and rural residents harder. Contrary to conventional wisdom, mileage-based user fees would actually be less of a burden than are gas taxes on rural residents who have to drive long distances to work or shop.