The Washington Post reports that conservative opposition is slowing the push for a $375 billion highway bill. From the opening, the story makes it sound like it’s just a spending issue. But the even bigger problem with the highway bill, curiously downplayed in the story, is that it would boost the federal gasoline tax by over 40 percent (from 18.4 cents/gallon to 26.4 cents/gallon by 2009). That’s not all. The story uncricitally accepts the claims by Highway bill proponents that it will create 1.7 million jobs, without any consideration of the jobs that will be lost from the tax increase.