The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is expected to begin pushing President Donald Trump and Congress into passing a law to increase the federal gas tax by 25 cents per gallon, in order to pay for nationwide infrastructure.
“I’ve been pushing this for a long, long time, but now gangs of people are pushing it,” Chamber President Thomas J. Donohue said in an interview with The Washington Post. The interest group leader also said that immigration reform will be necessary in order for there to be a sufficient supply of labor.
The current federal gasoline tax sits at 18.4 cents per gallon and has not been raised since 1993.
Trump has signaled an openness to such an increase, at least privately. Trump “floated the idea of raising the federal gas tax by as much as 50 cents per gallon” in private meetings, according to WaPo.
Under the Chamber plan, which will be officially unveiled this week, federal revenues are projected to raise over $375 billion through the next decade.
Such increased revenue could possibly sync well with Trump’s own desire to pass an infrastructure bill. The White House is expected to introduce a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal this month.
“We just got a new tax bill for the first time in 31 years,” Donohue told WaPo. “We’re making some significant changes in regulatory reform. We’ve got a president — everybody’s got all their own views about him and what he stands for and all that — but the guy’s getting stuff done.”
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