Biden objects to raising gas tax to pay for infrastructure
Source: AP
The White House made clear Friday that President Joe Biden was opposed to letting the federal gasoline tax rise at the rate of inflation to help pay for an infrastructure package that a bipartisan group of 21 senators is trying to craft.
The gas tax increase was part of an early package that called for $579 billion in new spending on roads, bridges, rail and public transit. It’s unclear if it will make the final cut and the White House seems intent on making sure it doesn’t.
“The President has been clear throughout these negotiations: He is adamantly opposed to raising taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. “After the extraordinarily hard times that ordinary Americans endured in 2020 — job losses, shrinking incomes, squeezed budgets — he is simply not going to allow Congress to raise taxes on those who suffered the most.”
The federal gas tax stands at 18.4 cents a gallon and has not increased since 1993. It helps pay for highways and mass transit programs around the country. Congress has traditionally relied on the user-pay principle to pay for road and bridge work, but is increasingly relying on general funds to accomplish that task. Lawmakers from both parties are wary of attack ads accusing them of supporting a hike in gas prices.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-business-government-and-politics-628666300e1ed0c9ad11c6eb8c608c4f
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that indexing the gas tax to inflation was a nonstarter for him.
“It’s another hit on working people,” Wyden said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said a gas tax hike is a “Republican thing.”
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Among many other reasons, there are two big ones.
1) Generally speaking, we have three levels of taxation, national, state, and local, comprised of either county or municipal. With the countries identified, generally speaking, there are only two levels of taxation, either national and regional or national and local.
2) More importantly, the countries identified may have higher taxation, but also have national healthcare, so their citizenry have no healthcare premiums, deductibles, or co-pays, so their net out-of-pocket costs are actually lower.
