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Today in Interstate History

President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Photo courtesy of FHWA.

January 19, 1959

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his Annual Budget to Congress for Fiscal Year 1960, addressed the status of the Highway Trust Fund. "The comprehensive highway program enacted in 1956 established the principle that highway users, rather than the general taxpayers, should pay the cost of Federal-aid highways," he noted in his message. He also warned of a projected deficit in that trust fund and urged a temporary increase in the gasoline tax -- effective until June 30, 1964 -- from 3 to 4.5 cents per gallon. Congress would increase the tax to 4 cents and for three years less than what Eisenhower proposed.