Trump has delighted transportation groups and infuriated conservatives with his latest show of support for a federal gas tax, but advocates on both sides of the issue say they aren’t taking his calls too seriously.
They say the president’s tendency to flip positions on a dime — and the tough political reality of raising the gas tax — suggests it would be foolish to put too much faith in the White House putting significant political weight behind the issue.
“My first thought was, will this last 30 minutes or 3 days or 30 days?” said Marcia Hale, president of Building America's Future, who supports raising the gas tax.
“It doesn’t cost him anything to say we’re looking at everything,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, an influential anti-tax group that has enormous sway over the Republican Party.
Trump’s latest endorsement came during a bipartisan meeting Wednesday at the White House,
where Trump said he could get behind a 25-cent gas tax hike to pay for his newly released infrastructure plan.
Trump’s apparent willingness to touch what has long been considered the “third rail” in politics has baffled some on Capitol Hill.
Raising federal fuel taxes — which hasn’t been done in over two decades — would be a herculean lift in Congress, where conservatives have repeatedly drawn a red line over the issue.
Yet Trump, who has bent the GOP party to his own will on other issues,
has repeatedly entertained the idea.
He first signaled openness to a gas tax hike in an interview with Bloomberg last spring,
though the administration was quick to walk the comments back.
Trump also mused about a 50-cent gas tax during a private meeting with lawmakers a few months ago, according to The Washington Post, while his economic adviser Gary Cohn has pitched a lower increase to some members of Congress.
Most recently, Trump said “several times” during a meeting with lawmakers that he could back a 25-cent fuel tax increase, according to Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who attended the meeting following the White House’s infrastructure roll out. Others familiar with the meeting said the suggestion was more of an off-the-cuff remark than a serious policy position.