THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And so the worthless layabouts in the Republican controlled House kicked the Highway Trust Fund problem down the road a little farther, not being able to agree on a long term solution.

With the highway fund set to hit empty on July 31, the House on Wednesday passed another modest squirt into the tank, an $8 billion, five-month transportation patch, by a vote of 312 to 119. It did so with a promise that by Dec. 18, Congress will pass — and President Obama will sign — a major overhaul of the international business tax code that will yield a windfall to fund a long-term transportation bill.

But that approach has one important doubter, Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and the majority leader, who thinks the prospects of such largess are about as likely as winning the lottery.

Highway funding, which once routinely had bipartisan support, has now become yet another source of division, this time within the Republican Party that controls Congress. House Republicans — bolstered, oddly enough, by the White House and a top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York — are adamant that by keeping the pressure on, the highway trust fund could be the ticket to a long-sought rewrite of the corporate tax code.

Mr. McConnell wants to be done with the highway bill before it gets pulled into the maw of presidential politics. He is trying to cobble together enough spending cuts and tax-law enforcement provisions to fashion a highway bill that will, at the very least, get the trust fund through the end of 2016.

Democrats — and some Republicans — say the answer has been staring Congress in the face for years: Raise the federal gas tax, which has become a less effective source for financing the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges and other infrastructure because cars and trucks have become more fuel efficient and drivers are buying less gas.

“There’s no excuse to keep torturing people,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon who is pushing a 15-cent-per-gallon fuel tax increase. “This is a fool’s errand. We ought to step up.”

The solution is obvious, and much more painless than other fancier ideas, but it would violate their sacred oaths to Notorious Anarchist Grover Norquist which is more important than any other oath they may take. And so the Republicans continue to prove they are unable to govern at the most basic level.