Democrats line up against gas tax holiday

House Democrats are lining up against a gas tax holiday, creating additional barriers for President Trump as he struggles to battle inflation and the rising costs at the pump.

The president this week proposed a moratorium on the federal tax, currently 18.4 cents per gallon, in an effort to provide some relief to drivers as fuel costs continue to spike in the midst of the war with Iran.

But Democrats are warning that eliminating the gas tax would undermine the highway trust fund, at the expense of infrastructure projects, without much guarantee that the savings would be passed down to consumers. They say the better strategy is to tackle the problem at its root by ending the conflict with Iran.

“His policies on energy and the war in Iran drove gas prices up, so now he’s saying: Let’s get rid of the tax rather than dealing with the real problem that he has created without a strategy,” said Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.), the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. “The trust fund is already ailing, because it just doesn’t collect the kind of revenue it once did.”

“My concern is that you’re going to take a lot of money away from the federal government when we’re already running a large deficit,” said a second Democratic lawmaker. “And 18 cents can vanish in a second.”

The resistance comes as gas prices have shot up as a result of trade disruptions resulting from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, which was launched on Feb. 28. On Wednesday, the nationwide average hit $4.51 per gallon, according to AAA, up from $4.13 a month ago and $3.16 a year ago. 

The trend has had the downstream effect of increasing costs on countless other consumer goods and services, including groceries and air travel. The spike in fuel costs was a major........

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