A big meeting held in our area this week to talk about transportation needs. During the Regional Transportation meeting, most on the panel agree that we will have to raise gas taxes to pay for road and bridge improvements.

Louisiana has a $25 billion dollar backlog of highway needs and that number continues to go up. Right now, we pay .20 a gallon to the state and 18.41 cents to the federal government.

The average gas tax in the country -- combining state and federal taxes -- is 49.62 cents per gallon.

See the taxes in each state.

In Louisiana, the average gas tax is 38.41 cents per gallon. Overall, California has the highest gas tax at 68.18 cents per gallon.

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