The federal excise tax on gasoline generates annual revenues which equal approximately 2/3 of the amount the federal government spends yearly on highways.
Please note: (1) Federal monies for road building and maintenance are not limited to highways, so the total federal spending on road building and maintenance exceeds excise tax revenues by more than the 50% that these figures taken alone would indicate; and, (2) The federal gasoline excise tax is not used exclusively for highways, so contributions from the general fund amount to more than 1/3 of the federal highway budget.
Sources: 1, 2, 3
Addendum:
dr: I think public transportation should be free. Actually, no. There's research showing that people undervalue free services, so there should be a nominal charge.
sp: But then how would you pay for public transit? Taxes on people who don't use it? That wouldn't be fair.
dr: But we already pay taxes for lots of services that we don't use. For example, lots of federal dollars go to building and maintaining roads. So we're already subsidizing transit.
sp: All of the money used for roads comes from gasoline taxes.
dr: That's ridiculous. Do you have any idea how much money the federal government spends on roads?
sp: The gas tax is really high. That's why gas is so expensive.
dr: The gas tax isn't high, and it isn't why gas is expensive.
sp: nyah! nyah!
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