Pelosi & Schumer Attacking Trump Over Gas Prices Puts California Gov. Jerry Brown In An Awkward Spot
forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2018/05/23/pelosi-schumer-attacking-trump-over-gas-prices-puts-california-gov-jerry-brown-in-awkward-spot
May 23, 2018
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Policy
Patrick Gleason
Contributor
I cover the intersection of state & federal policy and politics.
May 23, 2018,01:03pm EDT
This article is more than 4 years old.
The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein and Gideon Resnick reported this week that “Democrats are preparing an aggressive assault on the Trump administration in the coming weeks over the cost of rising gas prices nationally.”
This morning the coming campaign reported by Stein and Resnick began in earnest, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and fellow senate Democrats holding a press conference on Capitol Hill calling on President Trump to, as Sen. Schumer tweeted, “start fighting for lower gas prices for hardworking Americans.”
Are you creeping along on fumes because #GasPrices are so high? I'll join @SenatorCantwell @SenatorMenendez & @SenMarkey to push @POTUS to start fighting for lower gas prices for hardworking Americans LIVE in a few minutes: https://t.co/1xHPApFyIr
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 23, 2018
Set aside the question of whether or not rising gas prices, which are up more than 56 cents nationally over the last 12 months and expected to continue rising, are the fault of President Trump. Instead, let’s look at how this new strategy will put Democrats in California - the nation’s most populous state, whose government is completely controlled by Democrats - in an awkward position.
Why is that? Because Gov. Jerry Brown and fellow Golden State Democrats are about to spend the next seven months attacking a measure that will appear on the November ballot that would, if approved by voters, repeal the state gas tax hike championed and signed into law by Gov. Brown last year.
The $52 billion tax hike (over ten years) enacted by Gov. Brown and legislative Democrats in Sacramento raised the base excise tax on gasoline by 12 cents per gallon, taking it to 30 cents, and set another variable excise tax at 17 cents. The excise tax on diesel fuel jumped 20 cents, bringing it to 36 cents per gallon. The sales tax on diesel was hiked 4 percentage points from the current 5.75% to 9.75%. Gov. Brown and company also imposed a yearly vehicle tax ranging from $25 for cars valued at under $5,000 to $175 for cars worth $60,000 or more. That tax took effect at the beginning of 2018.
It was just reported in this space how Democrats have achieved parity with their messaging in favor of higher tax rates at the federal level and state level in North Carolina. With this new national campaign trying to blame President Trump for rising gas prices, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will soon have to explain why rising gas prices are a bad thing, but the action taken by Democrats to deliberately raise the cost of gas in her home state of California was a good thing.
If congressional Democrats plan to attack rising gas prices, will Congresswoman Pelosi, in order to maintain consistency in her position and messaging, come out against Gov. Brown’s gas tax hike and will she support the measure to repeal it?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The policy implications of the political maneuvering that ensues will be significant. This author has reached out to the offices of Gov. Brown and Rep. Pelosi for comment on this matter, and will update this article with their response should they choose to provide one.
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Patrick Gleason
I am Vice President of State Affairs at Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington-based advocacy and policy research organization founded in 1985