Gas tax holiday becomes the White House’s latest discarded rapid-fire policy gimmick
Under existing law, American consumers pay a gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon (24.4 cents for diesel and 19.3 cents for jet fuel), which generates revenue that is used for road maintenance through the Highway Trust Fund. Earlier this month, however, as the war in Iran pushed prices at the pump higher, Donald Trump announced plans to suspend the tax as a way to reduce costs.
There was some pushback, not just because of the nation’s infrastructure needs, but also because the savings would be minimal. As MS NOW’s Hayes Brown explained two weeks ago, “If put into place today, one economist suggested that a gas tax holiday would only save drivers roughly 60 cents total per trip to the pump, a drop in the tank compared to the $1.50 per gallon leap we’ve seen since Trump launched the Iran war more than two months ago.”
The president didn’t care. The pause, the Republican told CBS News, was “a great idea.” He also made it sound as if the change was definitely going to happen, adding, “We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time.”
So what happened? Toward the end of the latest White House Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump about his expectations for the federal gas tax.
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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