Highway Trust Fund
Financing the Federal-Aid Highway Program
Before 1956, the year interstate system authorizations were greatly increased, the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) did not exist. Cash to liquidate previously incurred obligations for the Federal-Aid Highway Program (FAHP) came from the General Fund of the Treasury. Budget authority came through the granting of contract authority, as it does now. Although taxes on motor fuels and automobile products were in existence, they were not linked to funding for highways. At the time, financing for the highway program and revenues from automobiles and related products were included under the public finance principle of "spend where you must, and get the…
