There were actually a significant amount of debate about the issue of national roads during the era in which our Constitution was written. The consensus was that people should only have to pay for roads they actually use. A number of proposals for national systems of highways were proposed in the early years of our Republic, and they were defeated for that reason. That is why the only provision for federal roads provided in our Constitution is for that of "postal roads" to be operated by the Postal Service. (The federal government uses them, so the federal government pays for them.) Our Founders have been opposed to the Department of Transportation funding system we currently have because it parcels out money in a manner that favors local populations; in other words, people who will never use roads must still pay for them. This violates the intent of the "General Welfare" clause, which is intended to ensure that federal expenditures are only made for causes that favor the entire nation. The Founders envisioned a system in which states and local jurisdictions -- and more importantly, entrepreneurs -- would build toll roads, so that only those people who actually used the roads would pay for them. This seems like an equitable system to me, and with the modern technology available to us, would be quite easy to implement. People could buy "subscriptions" for roads they use regularly -- like the iPass in Illinois -- and thereby whizz down those roads with a minimum of inconvenience. For roads they used rarely, they could plunk down their change the few times they drove down them. If all 300 million people in this country were paying tolls regularly, we wouldn't need as many toll booths either, since the overall income would be higher.
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote: