Gasoline tax hike proponents find an unlikely ally
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Strange days on the Potomac: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pounding the table for a tax increase.
The chamber this week came out fighting for higher federal excise taxes on gasoline at the pump, saying the move was necessary to provide funding needed for highways, bridges and public transportation systems.
‘Unless we make a serious financial commitment now, our infrastructure will continue to crumble around us, threatening our safety, mobility, and global competitiveness,’ Chamber President Tom Donohue said in a letter on the organization’s website. ‘The simplest, most straightforward way to raise money is through a modest increase in gasoline and diesel taxes.’
This tax increase idea is easier for the chamber to swallow, Donohue said, because ‘fuel taxes are different -- they are user fees.’
But that still isn’t an easy sell with some in Congress, Alec MacGillis at the Washington Post writes:
‘The White House has signaled that, busy as it is with health care, climate change and other issues, it wants to delay for 18 months the looming question of how the country should pay for its transportation infrastructure. The 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax has not been increased since 1993 and, as inflation progresses and people switch to more efficient cars, the tax is increasingly unable to cover the country’s highway, bridge and public transit needs. ‘House Democrats have drafted a $500 billion six-year transportation bill to replace the six-year plan that expires this fall, but the White House would rather extend the current spending plan using general revenues, rather than have the hard discussion over whether to raise the gas tax.’
Donohue told the Post that the chamber supports a gas tax increase of around 10 cents a gallon immediately, followed by annual increases of about 5 cents for the next few years and then a rate of increase indexed to inflation.
‘After 15, 16 years of not having an increase in the federal fuel tax, it is time to do that,’ Donohue said. ‘It’s just a small amount of the money that will be needed over time. Fuel prices are back down pretty much. . . .Do it! Just damn do it. You’ve got a window of opportunity now.’
-- Tom Petruno