House

Ryan: ‘We’re not going to raise gas taxes’

House Speaker Paul Ryan pledged on Wednesday that the House would not vote to raise a tax on gasoline, after President Trump reportedly endorsed such a proposal to help pay for his infrastructure overhaul. 

“Well, we’re not going to raise gas taxes so I don’t foresee that as a problem. We’re just not going to do that here,” Ryan said on a phone call with the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

“There are some people who are talking about that, but the last thing we want to do is pass historic tax relief in December and then undo that, so we are not going to raise gas taxes.”

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The 18.4 cent federal gas tax hasn’t been increased since the 1990s.

President Trump reportedly told lawmakers last month that he was in favor of a 25-cent gas tax hike to help pay for a multi-billion dollar plan to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure.

The infrastructure plan he released in February did not propose a hike in the tax. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also advocated for an increase in the gas tax.

But Americans for Prosperity and other conservative groups have been urging Trump and Congress not to raise gas tax, arguing that doing so would undermine the benefits of the new tax-cut law that Trump signed in December.
 
Ryan has long been against raising the gas tax. During a 2015 hearing, the Wisconsin Republican argued that an increase would be harmful to working families.