Democrats and Republicans are quick to talk up a bipartisan infrastructure deal. Yet neither party wants to take the political risk of paying for it when all options are toxic — including the obvious choice of raising the national gas tax. Increasing the gas tax is so politically fraught that it hasn’t been touched in 26 years and it didn’t even come up at a meeting at the White House Tuesday between President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss an infrastructure plan.
While they agreed broadly on the need to upgrade roads, bridges and airports, they put off for three weeks the tougher conversation about coming up with ways to fund an estimated $2 trillion in public works. Taxes on fuel in the U.S. are among the lowest in the developed world, at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel, and infrastructure advocates see raising the levies for the first time since 1993 as the best short-term option to generate needed revenue.
Still, a measure that would disproportionately affect poor and rural drivers raises opposition at all levels of the political spectrum. It’s also created strange bedfellows — aligning members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, born from the Tea Party movement, and progressives such as Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democratic presidential candidate.
“Working people who have got to get to their job, get their kid to a medical appointment, shouldn’t get hit again when multinationals are enjoying their big tax breaks and causing much of the wear and tear to the road,’’ said Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, who was at the meeting.