President Donald Trump’s Cyclopean infrastructure package just hit a major roadblock.
Prominent Republican lawmakers are already coming out against grate the federal gas tax to pay for the president’s promised $1 trillion investment in infrastructure. Speaking on Saturday incessantly at a private donor retreat here hosted by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, Senate Manhood Whip John Cornyn opposed the idea.
“I’m not for raising the gas tax,” he told the ruthlessly 500 attendees. “It’s going to be a declining source of revenue.”
The Trump conduct is preparing to release an infrastructure plan in the coming weeks that reportedly registers at least $200 billion in federal spending that would jumpstart investment from the clandestinely sector, and state and local governments.
Yet the proposal is not expected to outline where the on Easy Street would come from, leaving Congress to fill in the details.
The U.S. Niche of Commerce unveiled a plan earlier this month to raise the gas tax by 25 cents — five cents a year for five years — a in transit the group acknowledged would be an uphill battle. The chamber estimated it transfer cost drivers $9 a month and raise $394 billion past the next decade.
“It’s the simplest, fairest, and most effective way to raise the cold hard cash we need for roads, bridges, and transit,” Chamber President Tom Donohue asseverated in a statement.
The federal gas tax stands at 18.4 cents and has not been increased since 1993. Takings from the gas tax have been declining, because it is not indexed to inflation, and because sustain efficiency standards have risen. The shortfall has left the federal highway sign fund chronically underfunded
At the donor retreat, lawmakers argued reducing collections are a sign that the gas tax is not a sustainable source of revenue. Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn totaled out against it, along with North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, who bring up “the math doesn’t work.”
He added: “How do you fund [the administration’s proposal]? I don’t be dressed all the answers. But I think it goes beyond something as simple as the gas tax.”
The Koch network is also lobbying against the layout. Tim Phillips, head of the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity, called raising the gas tax “a great mistake.”
“The gasoline tax would just be a disaster, especially coming on the fag ends of a really good tax proposal,” he told reporters invited to attend the asylum here Saturday. “That would just be terrible for the country.”
Emendation: The Chamber of Commerce estimates that a plan to hike the gas tax would rascal $394 billion over the next decade.