McConnell rules out gas tax increase

The federal gas tax isn’t going up — and Congress still has no plan to keep paying for highway construction crews on the job this summer.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday ruled out raising the gas tax as a way to fill the Highway Trust Fund’s dwindling coffers. Without an infusion of cash, the fund will run out of money at the end of July.


McConnell said on Wednesday that the Senate will take up the issue as soon as next week. But there is still no clear strategy for how the Republican majority plans to find the billions of dollars needed to keep highway and transit construction up and running even as key Senate committee leaders push a six-year highway bill that’s likely to need more than $90 billion to cover its costs.

The federal gas tax has been flat for more than two decades even as it brings in billions less than Congress chooses to spend each year building infrastructure. But raising that tax is politically unpalatable to the vast majority of Congress, and McConnell stomped on the idea Wednesday after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did the same earlier this year.

“Let me just say we’re not going to raise the gas tax. We’re not going to raise the gas tax,” McConnell said. “The environment committee has come out with a six-year bill … but there is considerable skepticism that you could pay for a bill of a six-year duration.”

McConnell (R-Ky.) also said he was “skeptical” about the prospect of using a bipartisan plan from Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to overhaul some corporate taxes as a way to pay for crumbling highways, bridges and public transportation and said it would be too difficult to take on something so ambitious with just three weeks before the deadline.

That leaves Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to search for spending cuts or unused money elsewhere in the budget to avoid plunging off the transportation cliff; Congress needs about $11 billion to get through the end of the calendar year. And most Republicans hope a bill will go further, at least through the 2016 elections so they don’t have to take painful extension votes every few months.

In a rare turn, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) praised McConnell for pledging to move imminently on the highway bill but trashed the idea of a short-term highway extension, which Democrats believe the GOP is quietly plotting. Reid said a bill only lasting a few months would be “disgusting and very offensive.”

“That would be awful for the country,” Reid said.

Meanwhile, Schumer blasted McConnell for ruling out his plan while not presenting an alternative.

“We’re waiting for his plan. We’ve been waiting for months for Sen. McConnell to tell us what his plan is. What is it? And can it get bipartisan support? Can the president support it?” fumed Schumer. “What’s his alternative? We haven’t heard a thing.”