President Biden is asking Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months and proposing that states do the same.
In this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, hosts Mike Thompson and Steve Brown discuss why Ohio is likely not going to join the effort.
Pump It Up
President Biden says he wants to do something about the high gas prices. While he claims they are not his fault, he understands the pain many feel when filling their cars. So he wants Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months.
It’s only 18 cents per gallon, so prices would go from $5 a gallon down to $4.82. It’s not terrible, but it’s really not going to help pay the bills.
Biden is also calling on states to suspend their gas taxes for three months. Here in Ohio we pay 38.5 cents a gallon in state gas taxes.
But Governor DeWine seems not too keen on dropping the gas tax even for a little while. You’ll remember he wanted an even higher gasoline tax but settled for a 10 cents a gallon increase three years ago. The reason is that it pays for highways and bridges. Last year gasoline taxes brought in two and a half-billion dollars.
The DeWine administration says those savings will not help people all that much, but it would hurt road construction - like the replacement of the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati.
DeWine’s Democratic opponent former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley says DeWine should drop the state’s gas tax for six months.
Snollygoster Of The Week
Matt Borges, the former Ohio GOP chair, was indicted in the nuclear bailout scandal but has been loudly proclaiming his innocence for more than a year. He is now out with a new website. it lays out his defense and alleges the case against him is political payback.
He claims Trump used the Justice Department to get revenge on Borges for supporting John Kasich in the 2016 campaign and launching an effort to defeat Trump in the 2020 election.
Send questions and comments to snollygoster@wosu.org.