Buttigieg Says Gas-Tax Hike Would Violate Biden Campaign Pledge

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday that President Joe Biden opposes raising the federal gasoline tax because it would violate his pledge to not raise taxes on middle-class Americans.

“The President’s made a commitment that this administration will not raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year,” Buttigieg said during a Friday appearance on Bloomberg Radio’s “Sound On” show. “And so that rules out approaches like the old fashioned gas tax.”

Washington is gearing up for a debate about rebuilding the nation’s roads and other infrastructure, one that is likely to center on how to pay for a Biden administration proposal that is expected to cost as much as $2 trillion.

Receipts from the gas tax have been falling for years as cars become more fuel efficient, a problem the Biden administration’s push for electric cars is likely to accelerate.

“What we do know is that we’re got to come up with revenues that are going to be sustainable, that are going to be predictable and that are going to be robust enough to get us the highway infrastructure that we need,” Buttigieg said.

The gas tax, currently 18.4 cents per gallon, has not been increased by lawmakers since 1993. Congress has relied on transfers from other areas of the budget to close a gap in highway funding of as much as $16 billion a year.

“Sooner or later, we’re going to have to think in a more long-term way about how we fund our road infrastructure and there’s no time like the present,” he said.

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