TWO OF THE THREE topics dominating last week’s forum discussion with South Carolina’s congressional delegation were predictable: the war in Iraq and the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

The third subject was less obvious: Interstate 73.

There’s less controversy on the interstate than those other topics, of course. But at such an event, a gathering of elected officials and Chamber of Commerce members from around the state, there’s one aspect of I-73’s future that always spurs a dispute: how to pay for it.

Tourism interests see the highway, which would run from Michigan to the Grand Strand, as a gateway to better business. They see the coast’s crowded highways as an economic problem. When a hurricane evacuation comes, it becomes a safety problem.

I-73’s final path is being decided now, but it will enter South Carolina by Cheraw, run through the Pee Dee east of Florence and end in Horry County.

The projected price tag: $1.7 billion in South Carolina alone. While much of that money will come from the federal budget, the state must raise hundreds of millions over the life of the project.

Sen. Lindsey Graham dared to mention an option that, for most conservative Republicans, is unspeakable: a tax increase. “We need to put on the table raising the gas tax,” he said.

He knew that broaching a tax increase was not exactly what folks attending a Chamber of Commerce event want to hear, but it’s to his credit that he brought up the idea anyway — especially with the price of gas at an all-time high, if you don’t factor in inflation.

“Sometimes in government we have to challenge you,” he said. An all-too-rare sentiment.

Boosting the gas tax is not the only option mentioned to raise the money. Some have advocated for building the interstate as a toll road, either throughout its length or on its South Carolina stretch.

Rep. Joe Wilson made the case that travelers would gladly pay a few bucks to get to their beach vacations quickly. “It’s cost-efficient to spend $5-$10 to get there on time.”

There are other arguments for a toll road: It is a user fee, charged to those using a service, the kind of tax that taxpayers tend to accept more easily. Also, travelers from the North and Northeast may well have paid several tolls already, so they won’t be offended to cross the South Carolina line and find toll booths awaiting them.

But toll booths have their skeptics. Rep. John Spratt notes that tolls have enemies in Congress, and the trucking industry lobbies against them. There’s also something strange about erecting tolls at the state line, especially if a new I-74 runs to the North Carolina beaches without them. Rep. Jim Clyburn asserted that people just don’t like tolls, and some will go out of their way to avoid them.

But there’s a more basic reason to think that a gas tax might be the best way to go: We have a lot more highway to build and maintain than just the new I-73.

South Carolina has been starving its highway system for years, especially its state roads — which are 65 percent of the system, a much higher proportion than most other states. Our gas tax, source of most state highway money, is one of the lowest in the country.

The state has been alloted a big increase in federal highway dollars, but those dollars have to be matched with money from the state; that money, in turn, has been taken from building and repairing state roads.

In 2000, the S.C. Transportation Department called for a 7-cent increase in the gas tax, plus ending the diversion of gas tax dollars away from highways into other state needs. The downturn in state finances killed any political chance that proposal might have had.

But the problems of our roads have not gone away. Having shortchanged maintenance for years has increased repair needs — which, of course, is more expensive.

The support of the Grand Strand and its tourism industry for I-73, combined with the evidence of our crumbling state roads that drivers see every day — from potholes to backups — might make the time right to reconsider a gas tax increase.

While our state road needs are increasing every day, the question of paying for I-73 is not really upon us yet. Two more years of route-planning must be done, and this is, after all, an election year. No new ideas or speaking the T-word out loud, please.

South Carolina might be tempted to wait and hope, as it often does, for some miracle such as an economic boom to fill government coffers, before it has to make a hard choice.

But, as a road sign might say: Decision Ahead.

Reach Mr. Fitts at mfitts@thestate.com.