The agenda in almost every capital this legislative year will include a discussion about how – not if – to increase spending on roads and bridges.

The most tempting source, in these halcyon days of $2 gas, is the gas tax that underpins state and federal highway trust funds, on the theory that consumers either won’t notice or won’t mind because they will still be paying less.

“We’d notice,’’ said Jeff Hookey of Cornwall. “The American public is smarter than politicians give them credit for. Find another source.”

In Washington, where the federal highway trust fund will run out of money in May, the new Republican-controlled Congress is promising that it will not kick the can down the road – again. The best lawmakers could do last year was transfer $11 billion in general tax revenues to the trust fund to cover, temporarily, the shortfall between its obligations and its gas tax proceeds.

The federal gas tax, 18.4 cents a gallon, hasn’t been touched since 1993. Some legislators have taken a now-or-never stance on raising it, and others, a never stance.

In Trenton, N.J., where the transportation trust fund’s debt service is roughly equal to its spending this year, and spending has been stagnant for a decade, Gov. Chris Christie has put “everything,” including the gas tax, on the table.

The New Jersey gas tax, raised two cents to 14.5 cents a gallon in 1988, is the second lowest in the country, and residents, 60 percent of them in a recent survey, think it should stay that way.

In Albany, where debt service and day-to-day operational expenses at state agencies now claim more than $3 of every $4 in the “dedicated” highway trust fund, some lawmakers are clamoring for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to apply New York’s $5 billion windfall in settlements from wayward banks to “infrastructure.”

Depending on the legislator, infrastructure is defined as the highway trust fund, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

“The infrastructure needs are just so great anymore that I believe the money to meet them is going to have to come from a variety of sources,’’ said Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Beyond the $5 billion, there has been talk of tweaking the state sales tax component of the gas tax and adopting the Move NY proposal to put tolls on free New York City bridges, but legislators will wait until Cuomo shows his hand before showing theirs – in either his state of the state address or his preliminary budget this week.

“I’d be shocked if they raised the gas tax,’’ said John Corlett, director of governmental affairs at AAA Northeast. “It’s high enough as it is.”

Perhaps a more formidable obstacle, Corlett said, is public cynicism, pointing out the highway trust fund has been a piggy bank rather than a locked box for years. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli calculates the diversion of gas taxes and other fees supposedly collected for investment in transportation infrastructure at upwards of $1 billion a year.

“I’d be willing to pay more if the proceeds were used for roadway repair but it’s obvious our politicians can’t be trusted,’’ said Denis Belokostolsky of Warwick.

Hookey characterized the routine raids on the highway trust fund as “nothing short of criminal.”

Still, legislators capped the state sales tax on gas at 8 cents a gallon in 2006, and removing it could raise some much-needed revenue – and is an increase in the sales tax really an increase in the gas tax?

E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, thinks Cuomo, for starters, should divide the $5 billion between the MTA and the Department of Transportation and direct that it be used to put existing programs on a pay-as-you-go basis and reduce the expense of bonding them.

Using any of the $5 billion to subsidize tolls on the new TZB, said McMahon and others, would disproportionately benefit one group of people and one part of the state.

At the DOT, in contrast, McMahon said an infusion could stop the cycle of borrowing to support CHIPs (Consolidated Highway Improvement Program) so that this primary source of road and bridge funding for counties, towns and villages can ultimately be increased.

Local governments maintain more than half of the state’s bridges and more than three-quarters of its highway miles, but funding levels have languished.

The reason, McMahon said, is obvious: The 2014-15 state budget contains $518 million for CHIPs, all of it borrowed, and $538 million in debt service on $4 billion in outstanding bonds for the program.

“Does this make any sense?” said McMahon.

Meanwhile, the MTA wants $15 billion for its five-year, $32 billion capital plan. Lawmakers, after running the highway trust fund into the ground, have been forced to fund both the MTA’s and the DOT’s multi-year capital plans on a piecemeal basis – a practice that makes it almost impossible for either agency to advance projects effectively.

Alex Matthiessen, Move NY’s executive director, said the organization’s “fair tolling” proposal would raise $1.5 billion a year for the MTA and New York City’s roads and bridges, resolving the recurring shortfalls in the MTA’s capital plan and relieving some pressure on the suburban counties in the MTA’s service territory. In broadest-brush terms, the proposal would add tolls to free bridges in the city and adjust tolls on others to produce an equitable policy and eliminate congestion caused by toll-shopping.

“There’s a crisis every time the MTA or the DOT develops a capital plan,” said Gerald Benjamin, the authority on state government at SUNY New Paltz, “and it’s illustrative of the larger problem – the absence of any systematic, integrated approach to funding any of our infrastructure programs – water and sewer, airports, mass transit, highways, bridges.”

Robert Ward, deputy comptroller for budget and policy analysis, said his office advocates just such “a broad, coordinated plan that prioritizes all our capital needs” and relies more on pay-as-you-go programs and less on debt. The plan could start with restoring the highway trust fund to its original purpose.

But raise New York’s gas tax?

“I would in no way support it,’’ said David Sincerbox of Goshen. “These crooks constantly take from Peter to pay Paul and have no credibility regarding funding for a particular program.”

© 2015 Times Herald-Record