Republicans Take Inspiration From Joe Biden for Gas Price Relief
They’ve suddenly embraced eliminating the gasoline tax.
The holiday
President Donald Trump is floating a national gas-tax holiday to give some relief from the brutal prices at the pump he has helped to keep high through his war with Iran. Trump rarely credits former President Joe Biden for anything, so it’s no surprise that he has refused to acknowledge that his predecessor floated a similar idea in response to similarly war-fueled price pressures. Biden didn’t get credit for it back then, either: Democrats and Republicans alike panned the proposal. But this time around, for some reason, Senate Republicans have really taken a shine to it.
“Well, I know that [Trump] is working multiple avenues to find ways to lower the price of gas. The best answer is to bring the Iran conflict to an end and open up the Strait of Hormuz,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) told me. “Then we’ll see oil prices drop and gas prices drop. I know the president is suggesting also a possible gas holiday. I think that ought to be an option on the table.”
When I asked if he liked the concept of a gas-tax holiday when Biden was president, Daines said, “If we can find ways to reduce taxes, that’s not a bad short-term option.”
But Daines did not support Biden’s plan in 2022. Instead, he called that earlier proposal “more gimmicks and bandaid solutions to his manufactured energy crisis.”
The most blatant reversal came from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who called the Biden plan “treacherous” in a 2022 Fox News interview.
“We still have to pay for the upkeep and the maintenance of our interstate transportation network,” Lee said at the time.
But when faced with an open-ended proposal of the same policy under Trump, Lee decided it was worth it to rework it—to put his thing down, flip it, and reverse it:
Some Republicans I spoke to did oppose the plan right away on Monday, citing the critical tax revenue that comes from the gasoline tax, as well as the administration’s ability to lower prices through other means.
“We don’t have a demand problem, we got a supply problem, and I think the president can take a lap on that one by saying what he has done to increase discovery, and getting as much energy out of the ground as he can,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told me.
“I would not [support a gas-tax holiday] right now,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told reporters. “We obviously have to watch the debt and deficit as well as a country. Those are also things we got to be able to take care of.”
Senate Republicans are in a bind once again. While they historically have opposed taxes of any kind, they also feel it necessary to oppose tax relief when it comes from Democratic presidents. Combine those psychological pressures with their ultimate political duty—never publicly disagree with Trump—and you can easily see why your elected officials end up in such extraordinary contortions on TV.
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All the king’s men
The Senate returned to Washington on Monday, and they got right to work solemnly deliberating over several agenda items. Among the most important is deciding whether to agree to provide $1 billion in taxpayer funding for “security” enhancements for the new White House ballroom, which is currently being built over the ruins of the former East Wing.
Despite the bill text having been public for a week, most Republicans weren’t keen on discussing it.
“I have not seen the final proposal on that,” Lankford told me. “I’ve heard numbers thrown around, but I have yet to see, ‘Here’s an actual proposal. Here’s what’s needed.’ So we’ll see what that is.”1
Apart from Lankford, quite a few had seen the bill slotted for Republicans’ next reconciliation package, which would allow them to pass it without Democratic votes as long as the parliamentarian gives each item a green light.
“My understanding is it’s supposed to be paid for by private donations,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters in her classic noncommital style. “That’s what the president has said. We’re going to be hearing from the head of the Secret Service on what the enhanced security needs for the White House and others are in this heightened environment of political violence.”
“I think most of our members, as they are getting briefed on what the money’s going to be used for, are probably going to be in a good place,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday. “I think everybody has an understanding of what [the $1 billion is] going to be used for. As I said earlier, it’s to secure the building. And not just the ballroom—the entire East Wing.”
“There’s a lot of subterranean things that are classified that are part of the project,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) told me. “It’s not for the ballroom. The ballroom just happens to sit on top of that.”
When I noted that the bill specifically aims to allocate money for the East Wing Modernization Project, which the National Capital Planning Commission describes as the establishment of “a permanent, secure event space that provides increased capacity for official state functions,” otherwise known as a ballroom, Moreno briskly walked away and said, “No,” adding, “No, no, no, no.”
Providing such a large sum of taxpayer money for the ballroom, whether for aesthetic purposes or not, forces each senator to go on the record with their support for or opposition to the unpopular project. Vulnerable incumbents in battleground states don’t get a special exemption. But the parliamentarian could always bail them out by not allowing the ballroom security-boost money to be included in the final package.
Contagion
Measles is on the rise again in the United States, which means that more American children are dying needlessly, and their schools are becoming less safe. These ghastly developments are happening thanks to a surge in anti-vaccine beliefs, something for which the secretary of health and human services—a conspiracy theorist who happily engages vaccine doubters, deniers, and denigrators—bears a large measure of responsibility.
Things never had to be this way, a fact that registers with real pain for those who remember what life was like before we had the life-saving inoculation. Fran Moreland Johns recounts in the Atlantic the pride and hope he and other Americans felt when the measles vaccine finally became a reality:
It was a time of singular, optimistic patriotism. No one thought the road ahead would be easy; everyone believed that peace and shared prosperity were possible. For nearly a century, I’ve been privileged to watch the fits, starts, and swings of that optimism: the forward leaps of science and technology, the backward falls into tragic wars, the sidesteps into misguided ideologies. But the collective effort behind those hot cross buns and front-porch flags? That is still who we are, if we choose to be.
Amazing how quickly concerns about the deficit vanish when the subject changes. Also, Lankford said this immediately after the previous quote about the necessity of addressing the debt and deficit.
Here's a thought for these MAGA Republicans. They can make up for the lost revenue from the so-called Gas Tax Holiday by making the Big Oil conglomerates pay for it with a Windfall Tax.
Of course the MAGAs would never dream of doing such a thing, so they'll let the roads crumble and bridges collapse because of the lack of funding.
The shamelessness Mike Lee exhibits is truly incredible. I can't wait to see how the red states are going to fund maintaining the portions of the interstate highways in their states. Raise taxes on the good people of said red state. No way! Cut what little is left of Medicaid and use that $ instead? Of course!