A network of 50 conservative groups is pushing back at calls from Capitol Hill and the transportation industry to raise the federal gasoline tax, calling their effort among their most important legislative battles of the year.
The coalition, led by Americans for Prosperity, on Wednesday wrote an open letter to Congress urging lawmakers to do everything possible to keep prices at the gas pump from increasing.
“Not only is increasing the gas tax an ineffective way to address the nation’s transportation infrastructure needs, it would further increase the burden of government on families and business — and would disproportionately hurt lower-income Americans already hurt by trying times in our economy,” the letter read.
The coalition, which includes such influential conservative groups as Americans for Tax Reform, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Tea Party Nation, added that a higher gas tax would lead to higher prices on consumer goods and services.
“These increased costs would inevitably be passed down to consumers, resulting in a regressive tax hike on middle- and lower-income Americans,” they said.
Gasoline prices have dramatically decreased the past year, with the AAA auto club reporting Wednesday the national average price for regular gas at $2.04 per gallon. The situation has prompted some Capitol Hill lawmakers to consider raising the federal gas tax as a way to boost the insolvent federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road and bridge work around the country.
The largest sources of money for the trust fund are federal taxes of 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. But revenue from the taxes has declined in recent years because of increased vehicle fuel efficiency and because Americans are driving less.
Compounding the problem are increased highway construction costs and a gas tax rate that has remained the same since the Clinton administration.
Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have proposed raising the tax by 12 cents over two years and indexing it to inflation.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, also didn’t rule out the possibility of raising the gas tax as a way to replenish the trust fund during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday.
Three influential transportation-related groups — AAA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Trucking Association — on Monday urged Congress in a joint open letter that raising the gas tax would be the simplest and most effective way to help erase the trust fund’s deficit of about $16 billion.
The industry groups added that crumbling roads and bridges costs the average driver $324 annually in additional vehicle repairs and operating costs.
“There are many challenges that Congress must address this year, but we believe that finding a solution for funding the Highway Trust Fund is at the top of that list,” the business groups said. “Rather than continuing to resort to short-term funding patches that only delay tough decisions, our organizations support action to address the issue pragmatically, immediately and sustainably.”
But Americans for Prosperity, one of the conservative Koch brothers’ signature organizations, and its coalition partners said that wages of average Americans also have been stagnant and that current low gas prices have given the average family almost an $100 extra per month. This, they said, will lead to an additional $100 billion of economic growth.
“Congress should embrace these lower prices, not confiscate the savings, increase costs, and weaken growth potential,” the conservative groups said.
The groups also accused the federal government of misusing the trust fund by spending at least one-third of it on projects unrelated to fixing the nation’s crumbling highways.
“Congress should seek an alternate solution [to funding the trust fund] that properly prioritizes federal transportation infrastructure needs, reduces costly and time consuming bureaucratic hurdles, and further empowers state and local governments in conjunction with the private sector,” they said.
