It's an unusual thing, to say the least, when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce publicly suggests a major tax increase.
In general, the pro-business lobbying group advocates for tax cuts, reducing or eliminating regulations, and free-market policies that allow companies to operate however they choose.
But there it was on Tuesday: The Chamber will propose a 25-cent-per-gallon increase in the federal tax on gasoline paid by everyone who fills up at the pump.
The group intends to introduce a set of principles it believes should guide a long-overdue and comprehensive effort to upgrade the nation's roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, and other transportation infrastructure.
Raising the gas tax, however, is described as an "uphill battle" in coverage of the proposal by The Washington Post.
Congress last raised the U.S. federal gas tax 25 years ago in 1993, to the 18.5-cents-per-gallon level it remains at today. Diesel fuel is taxed at 24.4 cents per gallon.
In private meetings,
President Donald Trump is reported to have proposed raising the tax as much as 50 cents a gallon—an idea that received, the Post said, a "chilly reception" among Republican leaders who control the House and the Senate.
Still, a major infrastructure improvement program will require hundreds of billions of dollars of funding, and it's not otherwise clear where that money will come from.
Such a proposal has been a long time coming.
Over the years, numerous CEOs and corporate leaders—from Ford chairman Bill Ford to AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson—have said publicly the gas tax should rise.
"The U.S. allows the price of gasoline to go back and forth across this line where the consumers don't care about fuel efficiency and where consumers do care about fuel efficiency," said Jackson in 2009.
Then-General Motors board member Jerry York echoed the sentiment, suggesting to Reuters the same year the challenge of selling more fuel-efficient vehicles: "Unless gas is $3.50 or $4 a gallon, consumers are not going to want to buy those cars."
Over 10 years, a 25-cent increase in the gasoline tax would raise more than $375 billion, according to the Chamber's calculations—far more than the $200 billion the Trump Administration plans to propose when or if its long-delayed infrastructure plan is released.
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