I have long argued that the debate over the motor fuels tax shakes out over class lines. The gas is regressive, in that lower-income people pay a higher percentage of their income for the tax than wealthy people. Yet wealthy people place the greatest premium on their time stuck in traffic and are most agitated by the traffic congestion that higher gas taxes are meant to address. That’s why Virginia’s major business lobbies, which are populated by higher-income citizens, have consistently supported the idea of more taxes for roads.
Now comes data from an April 9-10 Gallup poll confirming at least part of my analysis. Gallup asked Americans whether they would support a hike in the gas tax in their state and broke down the numbers by annual household income. The first column in the chart below shows the % voting for a higher gas tax, the second the % voting against.
The results are as expected. The lowest-income Americans are less inclined to vote against gas taxes because they are less likely to own a car. Once you get into the lower-middle class, however, the cost of car ownership is a major concern and resistance to higher gas taxes is the most intense. Objections diminish with successfully higher income groups.
This data shows why so many politicians — especially Republicans, whose constituencies tend to be more rural, suburban and dependent upon automobiles for transportation — are so reluctant to raise the gas tax. Here in Virginia, increasing the sales tax by a fraction of a cent generated less opposition, even though it actually raises a lot more money.
For sure, raising gasoline taxes to finance new road construction is a political non-starter. But I persist in believing that people could accept gas tax increases if they knew that the revenue went to maintaining existing roads, rather than building some boondoggle highway for God-knows-who. Virginia should dedicate the gas tax to maintenance only, and the tax should float with the rising or falling cost of the maintenance budget. If only Gallup would dig deeper into the issue…
— JAB
