Trump is open to more-than doubling the gas tax to pay for his giant infrastructure plan

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February 14, 2018 9:09 PM

President Trump told lawmakers that he is open to an increase in the federal gas tax to help pay for his huge infrastructure plan.

President Donald Trump reportedly told lawmakers in a White House meeting that he is open to increasing the gas tax to pay for his giant infrastructure plan.
The federal gas tax has not been increased since 1993, when it was bumped to 18.4 cents per gallon of unleaded fuel.
A White House official declined to discuss what came out of a closed-door meeting, but said "the gas tax has its pros and cons."

President Donald told lawmakers he would be open to an increase in the gas tax in order to help pay for his infrastructure plan, a report said.

According to Jonathan Swan at Axios, Trump said he would consider raising the gas tax 25 cents per gallon to help pay for his plan to spend $200 billion of federal funding on infrastructure over the next 10 years.

The federal gas tax has not been increased since 1993 and currently sits at 18.4 cents per gallon for unleaded and 24.4 cents for diesel.

Republicans have been split on the idea. The tax is regressive, and many lawmakers have expressed concern about the optics of increasing taxes after passing their massive tax cut bill.

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