GOP chairman pronounces gas tax hike dead

[Panich52]

TheHill

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said Wednesday that Congress does not have the stomach for increasing the federal gas tax to help pay for a new transportation bill.

The idea of asking drivers to pay more at the pump than the current 18.4 cents-per-gallon gas tax has been floated by infrastructure advocates as lawmakers are scrambling to come up with a way to pay for an extension of the transportation funding bill that is currently set to expire in May.   

Shuster said Wednesday that transportation funding proposals like "repatriation," which relies on taxing overseas corporate revenue, are more politically viable, nothing that some form of the plan to rely on the idea have been introduced by both parties. 

"I think pretty much everybody in this town has come to the conclusion that repatriation is where the dollars are," he said during a briefing with reporters at the Capitol. "There is no willing in this Congress or in the administration to do anything with adjusting user fees or taxes."

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http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/236117-gop-chairman-declares-gas-tax-hike-dead

[cigsandcoffee]

1. Low gas prices have been terrific for the poorest Americans

Keeping oil prices down, and its direct positive impact on low-income Americans has been an absolute victory for the Obama Administration.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Sales taxes are considered to be regressive and to hurt the poor. n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. The Federal fuel tax was last increased in 1993, and is not indexed to inflation.

Considering that fuel taxes go to the highway fund, this is one significant reason for crumbling infrastructure.

[PoliticAverse]

4. If people want to transition to electric, hydrogen or like vehicles we need to separate

infrastructure spending from gasoline tax revenue.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Why?

A tax on fuel to pay for maintenance of the roads that the vehicles that fuel is used in drive on seems eminently sensible.

[PoliticAverse]

6. Because if everyone switches to electric vehicles fueled at home how do you pay for maintenance

with a gasoline tax then?

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. That presumes everyone will at any point in the near future; that's unlikely