The Gas Tax Makes Sense. Biden Considers Canceling It.

The gas tax is the one good tax, so it makes sense that it would also be the only one that President Joe Biden is considering suspending.

“I hope I have a decision based on data I’m looking for by the end of the week,” the president told reporters on Monday on whether he’d support a federal gas tax holiday. Suspending the 18-cent per gallon federal tax on gas would obviously require some votes in Congress. Biden’s final “decision” on whether to call for that congressional action really just boils down to whether he thinks it’s politically prudent.

The declaration of gas tax holidays in states both red and blue suggests that it’d be a popular idea, particularly when a gallon is averaging close to $5 nationwide. Five states, including Florida and New York, have suspended their gas tax already, notes CNET—a move that’s supported by 72 percent of respondents in a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll.

Sens. Maggie Hassan (D–N.H.) and Mark Kelly (D–Ariz.) introduced legislation back in February to suspend the federal gas tax through December 2022.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) threw cold water on that idea at the time, saying then that “Democrats want to blow a $20 billion hole in highway funding so they can try to mask the effects of their own liberal policies on working Americans.”

Gas was under $4 a gallon then. Perhaps today’s higher prices still will prompt national Republicans to follow their state-level partisan allies and get on board with a gas tax holiday.

Even if that’s the popular political move, it would certainly be bad policy. People hate taxes and rightly so. But the federal gas tax is more appropriately thought of as a user fee that charges people for a service they consume.

Fuel taxes paid by motorists are collected in the federal Highway Trust Fund, wh