This PDF file is a one-page memo to Treasury Secretary George Humphrey from Dan Throop Smith, head of tax analysis at Treasury, dated November 4, 1955, about a meeting the previous day where Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks had briefed a group of state governors on the final draft of the Eisenhower Administration’s revised highway plan.

According to Smith, “the Governors’ reaction to the proposal for a pay-as-we-go highway plan was not good.” Secretary Weeks said that “we had about come to current financing (with some borrowing) because the Clay program was not acceptable to Congress, and no one seemed to want the Federal government to use toll roads.”

Smith’s notes indicate that a lot of governors had concerns about toll-free federal expressways competing with state toll roads, and that “A 2-cent gas tax increase would apparently be strongly opposed. One-cent may be acceptable if coupled with higher truck taxes.”

Original document in the Treasury Department – Office of Tax Analysis subject files in the National Archives, College Park, Maryland.