Senior Lawmakers Join Revolt Against Gas Tax

That a powerful veteran lawmaker - who actually wants to r-e-d-u-c-e the gas tax - would add his backing to the budding anti-gas tax revolt helps take this effort out of the realm of the ”David vs. Goliath” category.

Sensenbrenner - who has been on Capitol Hill for over a quarter century - has a history of battling onerous gas taxes which impact millions of families. He has sponsored HR-497-The Freedom from Unfair Energy Levy Act (FUEL).

That measure - now pending before the House Ways and Means Committee - would place a six-month moratorium on federal motor fuel taxes, including the 18.3 cent per gallon tax consumers pay for gasoline and the 24.3 cent per gallon tax on diesel fuel. It would also repeal the 4.3 cent per gallon gas tax increase that Bill Clinton rammed through Congress during his first year in office.

The Sensenbrenner bill - originally introduced two years ago--was aimed at providing relief at a time when fuel taxes were skyrocketing. The Wisconsinite believes such relief is still appropriate. Any thought of going in the other direction and actually r-a-i-s-i-n-g the gas tax by 5.4 cents a gallon - as proposed by the powerful bipartisan leadership of the House Transportation Committee - would add insult to injury, in Sensenbrenner’s view.

Yet another House veteran, Rep. Dan Burton, (R.-Ind.), has also signed on to the anti-gas tax-increase letter circulated by freshman Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, (R.-Colo.) During the nineties, Burton chaired House committee investigations of some of the most embarrassing scandals of the Clinton administration.

Also included on the list is Rep. Sue Myrick, (R.-N.C.), who chairs the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative Republicans whose aim is to keep the GOP’s House majority from straying from the party’s core principles.

Myrick, a former mayor of Charlotte, was first elected in 1994 when the Republicans took the House for the first time in 40 years. Her judgment on urban-related security issues is widely respected on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, (R-Md.), a 10-year veteran anti-tax stalwart, is on board, as is Rep. J.D. Hayworth, (R-Ariz.), a rising star in the GOP and , like Myrick, a member of the Class of ‘94.

For that matter, Musgrave herself, though a freshman in this 108th Congress, is no “babe in the woods” on the legislative process. Before coming to Washington, she chaired the Colorado State Senate Transportation Committee. She knows how “the game is played” when it comes to the give and take of writing laws.

Thus she is undeterred by the high-power pressure that naturally stems from the simple fact that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sits on a lot of pork affecting congressional districts all over the map.

Though some freshmen, according to NewsMax.com sources, have been told to “sit down and shut up” on the gas tax issue, it really is not a question of threats. Everyone knows where the power lies. Threats are not necessary.

That is precisely why Musgrave and her allies are petitioning House Speaker Dennis Hastert to oppose raising the gas tax.

Noting the Speaker is working to pass President Bush’s tax cuts, she argues it makes no sense to turn right around, and raise a different tax.

The tax burden on Americans “should be lifted, not shifted,” she says.

Next week, the Colorado lawmaker and the 24 (as of Thursday) colleagues who have signed on to her letter are planning a media event. They will have the support of some 10 to 15 activists groups, including the National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Tax Reform.

This anti-tax revolt has legs. It is not going away. More later.