Rep. Mark Critz, D-Pa., who sits on the House Small Business Committee and serves as ranking member for the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Energy and Trade, reportedly told consitutents that the federal government should increase the gas tax – a move that, in tandem with President Obama’s jobs proposal, would seem likely to increase the price of gas significantly.
The Valley Independent in Pittsburgh paraphrases Critz as saying that “a gas tax is needed” but “it won’t happen.” The paper then quotes Critz expressing his frustration with congressional unwillingness to vote for tax increases.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., actually does discuss raising taxes, as when he acknowledged that Obama’s jobs plan can not pass the Democrat-controlled Senate without Republican support because several Democratic will not “gonna vote for a tax increase” while up for reelection. Durbin also noted that several Democratic senators refused to eliminate subsidies or tax credits for oil and gas companies.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., numbers among those senators. She said that the president’s goal of eliminating tax credits and subsidies – which would amount to a tax hike – on oil companies “is not going to fly, and [Obama] should know that,” before suggesting that “maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.”
Critz did not specifically endorse President Obama’s jobs plan, although he proposed infrastructure spending analoguous to Obama’s proposals ahead of the president’s speech to the join session of Congress. After Obama spoke, Critz released a statement saying that he “look[s] forward to working with the President and my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to move our great country forward.”
Maybe the government should not be in the business of subsidizing businesses and industries. Federal efforts have certainly backfired in the solar energy sector, as the Solyndra bankruptcy shows. But it might bear considering how much government action would drive up the price of gas if Critz achieved his goal of a gas tax increase and President Obama’s jobs plan passed. After all, both Critz and Obama face the same obstacle: “the politics and ideology of the federal government” – or at least of Republicans and some Democrats – “is no increases in taxes.”
