Booster of Gasoline Tax Fought Increase in 1980s

WASHINGTON – Some of the most powerful conservatives in today’s Congress opposed raising the gasoline tax more than 20 years ago, even defying the master of tax cuts, then-President Ronald Reagan.

What’s more, the man who is leading today’s fight in favor of boosting the gasoline tax, House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, was among the congressmen who opposed a similar boost in 1982.

This research was unearthed by the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative House Republicans. Headed by Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., the RSC was galvanized into action as a result a full-page ad in the Washington Times by a highway lobby group known as Transportation Coalition.

As NewsMax.com reported last week, the ad said in part, “If it was right for Reagan, it’s right for us,” and “It’s OK to be a conservative and support the increase in the federal highway tax.”

The record shows that many conservatives believed even then that raising the gasoline tax was not “OK.” RSC names seven current House committee chairmen who fought the good (but losing) fight against raising the price at the pump more than two decades ago.

Aside from Don Young (Transportation), these present-day chairmen are David Dreier (Rules, which has virtual life-and-death power over the fate of legislation), Henry Hyde (International Relations), Mike Oxley (Financial Services), Jim Sensenbrenner (Judiciary; note: as reported by NewsMax, Sensenbrenner has signed on to the current letter to Speaker Hastert urging him to oppose raising the gas tax), Billy Tauzin (Energy and Commerce; back then he was a Democrat), and Bill Young (Appropriations).

The House’s effort to boost the gasoline tax in 1982 was led by Illinois Democrat Dan Rostenkowski, then chairman of Ways and Means. Of the 169 votes against the Rostenkowski Amendment, 87 were Republicans. Eighty-two Democrats also voted no, which means that a slight majority of “no” votes came from Republicans even though a Republican president at the time was giving Rostenkowski his full support.

One of the Republican lawmakers who fought against hitting motorists in the wallet that year was Dick Cheney, then a congressman from Wyoming.

The future vice president declared, “Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the proposed 5-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax, because I am convinced that such a tax increase could wipe out more jobs than it would increase.”

Cheney is thus consistent. Today’s Bush administration, of which he is a part, opposes the proposed gasoline tax increase of 2003. His comment on the House floor years ago is relevant in today’s context. His belief that raising the tax would “wipe out more jobs than it creates” runs counter to the argument by those who claim the proposed gasoline tax boost of 2003 would in fact create jobs.

Many conservatives such Cheney did not buy that “jobs-creation” reasoning then, and a conservative caucus on the Hill is not buying it today.

NewsMax’s efforts to reach Chairman Young have thus far been unsuccessful. Congress is in recess, and the time lag between Washington, D.C., and Alaska has made it difficult to catch up with him. We will keep trying.