INDIANAPOLIS (WOWO): House Republicans have unveiled a road funding plan calling for increases in gas and cigarette taxes.

Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) says the state needs a permanent funding source for more than a billion dollars in annual maintenance needs. The G-O-P plan earmarks a nickel of the seven-percent sales tax on gasoline for roads. They’d make up the loss to the general fund by essentially doubling cigarette taxes.

Republicans are also proposing a four-cents-a-gallon gas tax increase. Unlike the sales tax, that levy is a flat amount, not a percentage, and Bosma says the increase would recoup purchasing power lost to inflation since the last increase 14 years ago.

Pence boasted in announcing his four-year funding plan that it included no tax hikes. Bosma argues the taxes in the House plan are the right kind of tax hike, because they're essentially user fees, with smokers financing health costs and motorists paying for the roads they drive on.

The twin tax increases would bring in about 660-million dollars a year.

The bill also assesses a 100-dollar registration fee for electric vehicles, and calls on INDOT to study potential tolls on I-65, 70, 80 and 94.