Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday ripped into congressional Republicans for not passing a gas tax increase to shore up the Highway Trust Fund.
The only problem? The White House doesn’t support a gas tax increase, either.
“Hell, Congress can’t even decide on a gas tax to keep the highway system going,” Biden said during an event Wednesday on ensuring unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S-Mexico border have access to lawyers.
But here’s what White House press secretary Josh Earnest said when asked about a gas tax hike in June: “I believe that’s something that we’ve said a couple of times that we wouldn’t support.”
Not surprisingly, an increase in the gas tax would be a difficult position for vulnerable Democrats to take ahead of the November midterms.
This is hardly the first time Biden has spoken out on an issue in a way that didn’t mirror the administration’s public stance, perhaps most famously, when he endorsed same-sex marriage before President Obama.
Lawmakers ultimately united behind a short-term fix on highway spending before their summer recess — and it did not include an increase in the federal fuel tax.
