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Tag: gas tax
Sen. Mitt Romney

Romney’s ‘Deal’ Would Tax Working Families, Not Corporations

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

A new infrastructure plan being pushed by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and a bipartisan group of senators would not increase corporate taxes at all. Instead, it would raise taxes on every American who buys gasoline — running afoul of the president's promise not to raise taxes on working families.

The group of 10 senators said Thursday they had agreed on a blueprint for $579 billion in new spending on transportation and broadband infrastructure. It would reportedly not include any immediate tax increases but would index the gas tax to inflation, meaning consumers would likely pay more each year.

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), Romney, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Mark Warner (D-VA) called their plan a "realistic, compromise framework to modernize our nation's infrastructure and energy technologies" in a joint statement.

This plan is a bit more new spending than was offered by a GOP-only group — led by West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito — which failed to reach an agreement after lengthy negotiations with President Joe Biden.

After initially proposing just $189 billion in new investment above the existing baseline spending (adjusted for inflation), her group would go no higher than $330 billion.

But this proposal is still way less than Biden requested in his American Jobs Plan. He initially proposed $2.25 trillion in new spending on transportation, water systems, broadband, caregiving, child care, climate, and clean energy infrastructure, funded by increased taxes on corporations. Biden's package enjoys widespread popular support, with 68% of American adults backing it in a late April Monmouth University poll.

In late May, Biden offered to bring the total down to $1.7 trillion. Still, not a single congressional Republican has indicated support.

Biden ran on a campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 annually. GOP lawmakers, who oppose raising taxes on the rich and businesses, have instead urged an increased gasoline tax.

But the White House has reportedly objected to this idea, noting that it would raise little new revenue and would violate Biden's promise.

Most Americans back the idea of funding infrastructure investments with more corporate taxes. The same April Monmouth University poll found 64 percent for the idea.

Even Rep. Don Young (R-AK), the longest-tenured member of Congress, included a four percent increase in the corporate tax rate in his own infrastructure proposal on Thursday.

Because many people who make under $400,000 a year drive cars, the gas tax increase would put much of the burden on lower- and middle-income Americans.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who caucuses with the Democrats and chairs the Budget Committee, opposed the idea last month.

"Unbelievable but true: The same Republicans who voted for trillions in tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations," he tweeted on May 15, "now want to increase taxes on working families through user fees, more toll roads and higher gas taxes while cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

Even the right-wing Americans for Prosperity has been critical of indexing the gas tax to inflation.

Michael Lambert, a policy analyst for the dark money group, wrote in the Hill last year that such a proposal is "a tax hike on workers and families" and that "raising the already regressive gas tax would disproportionately hurt those who can least afford it."

Unlike Biden's proposal, the senators' counterproposal would do little to address the climate change crisis. Last week, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached its highest monthly average in recorded history — a huge threat to the climate.

Some Democratic senators are pushing back.

"No climate, no deal," warned Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts on Wednesday.

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse complained on Monday that "Climate has fallen out of the infrastructure discussion, as it took its bipartisanship detour. It may not return."

On Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon — chair of the Senate Finance Committee — told MSNBC that because the Romney group's proposal includes "nothing on climate change" and no corporate tax increase, it is "a complete nonstarter" and the White House "won't accept it."

He said it is time for Democrats to pass Biden's plan through budget reconciliation, a budget process that would let the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate enact a plan without a single GOP vote — if they stay united.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

President Biden and Vice President Harris

Republicans Demand Gas Tax Hike To Fund Infrastructure

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Among Congressional Republicans' reasons for opposing President Joe Biden's $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan is its provision for increasing the corporate tax rate.

Some GOP lawmakers are urging instead a hike in the gasoline tax to fund infrastructure investments.

Unlike a corporate tax increase, a higher gasoline tax could disproportionatelyhurt working and lower-income Americans. It would impact those who have to drive to and for work and apply equally to lower- and higher-income drivers.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who attended a meeting on Monday between Biden and a group of Congress members from both parties to discuss the infrastructure plan, told the Washington Post that he urged Biden to reconsider increasing the gasoline tax.

"Roads, bridges, and ports are undoubtedly infrastructure, and I believe that energy grids, broadband, and clean water can fit the definition as well. But I have concern that moving too far beyond this could sink the bill," Young said.

Biden's plan calls for partially rescinding the massive corporate tax cuts that were included in Donald Trump's 2017 tax law, raising the rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and closing some loopholes. This would bring in an estimated $2.5 trillion in new revenue over the next 15 years.

Corporate interest groups like the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have opposed the tax rate increases included in the plan. The Republican lawmakers they have helped bankroll have indicated that they all plan to oppose the increases.

"I view the 2017 tax bill as one of my signature achievements in my entire career," Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told reporters on Monday. "It would be an almost impossible sell for the president to come to a bipartisan agreement that included the undoing of that signature."

But polls show strong public support for both Biden's infrastructure plan and the corporate tax increases that would fund it. A Morning Consult/Politico poll released on April 7 found 65 percent support for a funding the plan through increased corporate tax revenues, including 42 percent support from Republican voters.

John Anzalone, who was pollster for Biden's 2020 campaign, told Axioson Sunday that raising taxes on corporations is a political winner: "We can take control of the tax narrative like we did in the Biden campaign — which was to say, 'No, that's not true, your taxes aren't going to increase, it's only those who are making over $400,000 and big corporations, who haven't been paying their fair share of taxes over the years.'"

Earlier this year, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg suggested a gas tax increase might be considered, but the administration decided against it.

Biden, who has repeatedly said he will not raise federal taxes on families making less than $400,000 annually, has indicated he is against increasing the tax on gasoline. Reuters reported on Monday that, according to a White House official, Biden told lawmakers that increased gas taxes would not provide a significant boost to federal revenues.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Is This The Way States Can Sell Tax Hikes For Transportation?

Is This The Way States Can Sell Tax Hikes For Transportation?

By Elaine S. Povich, Stateline.org (TNS)

WASHINGTON — In a conservative Republican state, how does a governor raise taxes, issue bonds and ask local taxpayers to pay even more for transportation? According to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, you do it by building a coalition of business, industry, churches and educational groups united on one goal: moving people around the state.

“You have to set the table and then you have to deliver,” Herbert, a Republican, said.

“Setting the table” involved at least two years of forging a coalition of interested parties, all of which rely on transportation, to support raising money to build and rebuild Utah’s multifaceted transportation system.

And this year, everyone was called on to “deliver.” In March, Herbert signed a bill passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature that raises the existing 24.5 cents per gallon state gas tax by about 5 cents to pay for state infrastructure projects, despite complaints from some quarters that, because the state has a surplus, it shouldn’t be raising any taxes. The new tax is structured to rise with inflation.

In addition, voters in 17 of 29 Utah counties will be asked in November to approve a 0.25-cent increase in their counties’ sales tax to fund local transportation projects that the state doesn’t pay for, such as city street repairs and local interchanges.

Although nearly every state is struggling to maintain and rebuild its transportation system, Utah is one of only seven states where the legislature this year approved an increase in gas taxes to do it, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning research and advocacy group that focuses on policy. Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Washington were the others.

Sean Slone, director of transportation and infrastructure policy at the Council of State Governments, a nonprofit research group, says Utah’s method of selling a tax hike wouldn’t necessarily work in all states, but it is a good model for some.

“Part of it is we have good leadership in the (state) House and the Senate,” Herbert said in explaining how he accomplished his goal during a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., recently.

But that’s only part of it. The leadership needed its courage bolstered to vote for an increase in the gas tax, which hadn’t been raised in 18 years. To help build that courage, Herbert and his allies fanned out across the state, roping in business and industry.

“We have great Chamber of Commerce members who say, ‘For us to be successful in business, we have to have infrastructure that works,'” Herbert said. “We heard loud and clear from the business community that we need to have a transportation infrastructure that gets us from point A to point B with little discomfort and congestion.

“It made it easier politically, for the Legislature to do it with the support of the business community and the Chamber of Commerce, education and others out there who are stakeholders and endorsed a commonsense adjustment in our taxation for transportation.”

Herbert also had the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan, which sets out what needs to be fixed or built over the next five years to keep up with growth and prioritizes the requirements for transit, highways, bridges and rural roads in the state. The plan also includes transportation projects in national parks, national forests and Indian reservations. These are important in a state where the federal government owns 70 percent of the land.

“They sort of have a unique process in Utah,” Slone said. “They got a lot of different stakeholders to weigh in and produced a document that is guiding their decisions, and their goal to raise these additional funds and commit these dollars to transportation. It was a universal effort, and legislators and other folks really tout this as a founding document.”

Utah’s transportation program isn’t all about repairing what it has.

The state’s population is expected to nearly double by 2050, from 2.9 million to nearly 5 million people, a combination of large, growing Mormon families and an expected influx of new industry and accompanying residents from other states. So accommodating additional traffic from newcomers was important in planning and selling higher taxes in a state that relies on more than 43,000 miles of roads and 5,800 miles of state-maintained highways.

In addition, the Salt Lake City metro system — which is known as TRAX and transports about 68,100 riders daily — is slated for expansion.

Utah couldn’t count on the federal government to solve its transportation needs.

Between 2001 and 2012, federal funds made up 34.6 percent of Utah’s transportation budget — the lowest of any state, according to a study by Transportation for America, an interest group made up of political, business and civic leaders pushing transportation funding.

Congress also has left the federal gas tax, 18.4 cents per gallon, untouched for 21 years, passing stopgap highway funding measures in recent years with no comprehensive plan to keep federal highway funding apace with inflation. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates the federal gas tax has lost nearly 40 percent of its value since the last time it was raised.

In a February report, “Funding Challenges in Highway and Transit,” The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew funds Stateline) said that state gas tax revenue to fund transportation also has declined by 15 percent from 2002 to 2012.

This isn’t the first time Utah has sought to tackle its transportation needs. According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Utah “by almost any measure” has one of the “most successful transportation organizations in the country,” winning praise for how it has helped people move around the state.

As far back as 1997, the state came up with a plan for future transportation funding that did not count on the federal government and its gas-tax-funded Highway Trust Fund. With its eyes on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah designated 42 highway projects that would not have been completed without more funding and increased the gas tax from 19 cents per gallon to 24.5 cents per gallon, putting the money into a special highway fund. Most of the projects were completed before the Olympic flame was lit.

In 2009, Utah issued $2.2 billion in bonds to pay for projects, including a $1.7 billion reconstruction and expansion of Interstate 15, the major north-south artery between Salt Lake City and the Provo-Orem area in Utah County, one of the fastest growing counties in the nation.

Utah also has led in construction innovation. Consider the Sam White Bridge demolition and reconstruction, which was part of the I-15 project and is considered a model for building bridges quickly so that traffic isn’t disrupted for days, weeks or months.

The old two-span bridge was torn down and a new bridge moved into place in less than 24 hours in 2011. The new bridge was constructed on a “bridge farm” on the east side of I-15. Then, hydraulic jacks on wheels, controlled by a joystick, were used to lift the 3.8 million pound bridge, move it across eight freeway lanes, and lower it into place. It was done overnight and the bridge was bolted down and ready for traffic by 7 a.m.

U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a 38-year Senate veteran, said that the population in his state is growing rapidly and the state is constricted by federal land, giving rise to innovation.

“Utah is way ahead of most states,” the Republican senator said. “We have an electorate that believes we want to have a good state and have things that work.”

Photo: When traffic gets this bad and roads deteriorate, the government needs to step in — even if it’s politically unpopular. REUTERS/Mike Blake 

On Gas Tax Increase, Obama Is Wrong — And (Some) Republicans Are Right

On Gas Tax Increase, Obama Is Wrong — And (Some) Republicans Are Right

It doesn’t happen often, but Washington is now debating an important issue on which the United States Chamber of Commerce, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer, and a growing posse of assorted right-wingers are right – and President Barack Obama is wrong.

Those voices on the right, along with many on the left, are urging consideration of an increase in the federal gasoline tax, sorely needed both to maintain America’s transportation infrastructure and to reduce greenhouse gases. Yet for reasons best known to him alone, the president is resisting that excellent idea.

As every sentient American adult knows, the price of gasoline at the pump has fallen precipitously in recent months. Filling a 20-gallon tank today costs about $30 less than buying the same volume of gas cost last summer. To raise the federal gas tax by 15 cents per gallon would only recoup 10 percent of that consumer bonanza – and would bring tax revenues roughly in line with inflation since the last time an increase passed in 1993.

Since then, of course, America’s roads, bridges, tunnels, and transit systems have continued to decay, without sufficient funding or will to keep them in decent condition. Congressional revulsion at raising taxes, thanks to the mania enforced by Grover Norquist at the misnamed Americans for Tax Reform, has left the Highway Trust Fund on the brink of bankruptcy since last year. A modest gas tax increase would begin to solve the problem, at least for the transportation sector. (The rest of the nation’s infrastructure – everything from airports and dams to state universities, public buildings, and water mains – is falling apart, too, but that will require bigger solutions.)

Were we inclined, as a nation, to consider what we owe both our ancestors and our descendants, Washington would have embarked on a program of national reconstruction years ago, to take advantage of negligible interest rates, an idled labor force, and under-utilized capital. No comparable opportunity to rebuild cheaply and efficiently, while creating the kinds of jobs that support families, has existed since the Great Depression. And much of what we now take (and use) for granted was built in those years, and in the early postwar decades, when public works were widely seen as a public good.

But the ideologues who now dominate our politics under the rubric of “conservative” are not in the business of conserving anything – not our natural resources, not our environment, and certainly not our infrastructure. Their frothing opposition to government and taxation has actively encouraged decay. Today, the radicals represented by the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity (another misnomer) will seek to block even a very modest gas tax increase, as they are doing on the state level in Iowa – without any plausible proposal for infrastructure repair that everyone knows is essential.

Ask for their alternative solution to financing infrastructure, and the geniuses at the Heritage Foundation, for instance, demand an end to transit spending and a cut in construction wages. Others on the right simply mumble about “reducing waste.” What they don’t propose is a plausible, equitable, sustainable way to rebuild.

These people shouldn’t call themselves the Tea Party. With their strange urge to ruin the transportation systems that made this the strongest country in the world, they’re more like a Termite Party. Termite is also the proper term for Republicans in the House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner brags that he has never, ever voted to increase the gas tax. (After all, it doesn’t fund golf courses or tanning beds.)

The limits to such madness may be on the horizon, however. When a right-wing stalwart like Inhofe – a noted climate denier and stooge of the oil industry – acknowledges that a gas tax increase may be inevitable, then sanity could break out, even on Capitol Hill.

For President Obama to situate himself among irrational opponents of an increase is perplexing. Perhaps if enough Republicans and corporate leaders insist on a gas tax hike, he will abandon that position and join their ranks. And then at last, the “bipartisan” approach he still cherishes, against so much evidence, might produce something of value to this country.