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.<\/p>\n
Increasing the gas tax is so politically fraught that it hasn\u2019t been touched in 26 years and it didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Still, a measure that would disproportionately affect poor and rural drivers raises opposition at all levels of the political spectrum. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking people who have got to get to their job, get their kid to a medical appointment, shouldn\u2019t get hit again when multinationals are enjoying their big tax breaks and causing much of the wear and tear to the road,\u2019\u2019 said Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, who was at the meeting.<\/p>\n
Some Democrats, including Wyden and Schumer, have said they\u2019d only consider increasing the gas tax if it\u2019s paired with a roll-back of tax cuts that benefited the rich in the 2017 tax overhaul. The 2018 Senate Democratic\u00a0infrastructure plan called for raising taxes on top earners and corporations.<\/p>\n
Even though Trump campaigned on a promise to invest at least $1 trillion in infrastructure, the plan he released last year included only $200 billion over a decade — mostly in incentives to spur investments by states, localities and the private sector.<\/p>\n
Democrats said after their meeting with Trump on Tuesday that he offered no plan for financing infrastructure projects. They said they won\u2019t make any offers and will wait for the White House to make its proposal in three weeks. Democrats said Trump indicated he\u2019s soured on a public-private approach.<\/p>\n
The White House statement after the meeting made no mention of an amount an amount or where the money would come from.<\/p>\n
While Trump has said\u00a0he\u2019s eager\u00a0to work with Congress on infrastructure, Democrats say Republicans won\u2019t go along unless the president publicly endorses a plan — especially if it includes a tax increase.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers who attended a closed-door meeting with Trump a year ago said he told them then that he\u2019d\u00a0support\u00a0a 25-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax and take the political heat. But Republican congressional leaders were opposed, and Trump never backed the idea publicly.<\/p>\n