A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Jim Waters: Tax-hiking zealots have a Plan B — sneaking legislative gimmick to raise gas tax


Since special-interest groups pressuring legislators to raise Kentuckians’ taxes wouldn’t dare take a credible poll to find out what the average taxpayer thinks, let’s do one here using this question: How do you, as a hardworking Kentuckian, feel about the possibility of state lawmakers adding a huge gas tax, especially considering prices at the pump could soon exceed $3 a gallon?

Regarding such an irresponsible policy, are you:

a) happy about the prospects of state government taking more money out of your pocket? After all, government knows better than you how to spend your money. Right?

b) wishing politicians and special-interest groups would focus on more efficiently spending the billions already taken in by Frankfort each year. Wouldn’t more effective prioritizing of those dollars – including ensuring infrastructure needs are met instead of pouring more into wasteful projects like Kentucky Wired – be a better road to take?

Jim Waters

It doesn’t seem relevant to ask about political affiliation, race, gender or age since Kentuckians of all ages, races and political persuasions will experience the brunt of a gas tax hike.

Perhaps the only relevant category to include is poll-participants’ incomes, since raising gas taxes disproportionately affect working and lower-income families, forcing them to spend a higher percentage of their pay getting to work or school and purchasing goods – including groceries and clothes – delivered by trucks.

The most consequential polls, of course, are elections, where voters sometimes get to decide these issues.

Three years ago, 53% of voters rejected a ballot measure proposing a ginormous increase in Missouri’s gas tax.

Instead of respecting the wishes of the Show-Me State’s voters, pro-tax-hike cronies resorted to proposing gimmicks in Missouri and a handful of other states, including offering residents a refund on the higher prices they pay at the pump, an inclusion meant to try and make upping gas taxes more palatable for wobbly politicians and unsupportive citizens.

We’re likely to see such a ploy offered in Frankfort during the closing days of this year’s legislative session. But it’s nothing more than a talking point and certainly isn’t a serious policy proposal.

Few Kentuckians will engage in the laborious process of saving all those flimsy little gas receipts cluttering their car floors and bulging from their glove compartments and go through the trouble of bundling and shipping them to Frankfort just to receive a rebate check in the mail weeks later.

Even the Tax Foundation, which overtly supports a higher gas tax in Kentucky, once stated that such a stunt “will be massively complex for taxpayers and administrators, and the compliance costs will be huge.”

We could also see legislative gimmicks during the final hours of the General Assembly session, including burying a sizable gas-tax increase in a
shell bill created to circumvent the transparent legislative-deadline process.

Supporters of this evasive policy failed earlier in the session to get traction to move House Bill 561, which was clearly labeled as a gas-tax increase from the time it was filed.

Expect them to attempt sneaking a tax hike through by burying it in legislation like House Bill 321, which is described only as being for the purpose of requiring the state’s revenue department “to adhere to any extension of the 2020 federal income tax return filing.”

It’s a benign bill which resulted in easy passage in the Kentucky House and has already had two of the three readings needed for passage by the Senate.

Ironically, one of the index headings of the original version of HB 321 indicated the legislation was associated with a “Taxpayer Bill of Rights.”

Considering the harm such legislative chicanery and complete lack of transparency will result in for hardworking Kentuckians facing the double whammy of recovering amid COVID-19’s economic fallout while paying more at the pump, taxpayers’ worries – much less their “rights” – are of little concern to these tax-hiking crusaders.

Jim Waters is president and CEO of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Kentucky’s free market think tank. He can be reached at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com and @bipps on Twitter.


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3 Comments

  1. Marv Dunn says:

    Just how much of an increase are we talking about. The writer only describes it as “huge”. I have a feeling, from his perspective in a right wing “think tank”, any increase would be “huge”. Certainly Kentucky needs to spend more money on its roads and bridges and a fair increase seems appropriate. A gas tax substitute for hybrid and all electric vehicles should also be addressed. The writer cites hardship on workers and lower income families. Since when have Republicans felt concern for these groups of taxpayers.

    • Libby says:

      This is where liberal logic fails…
      You say a “fair” or “appropriate” amount of tax increases seems okay.
      If you let that slip and add up a bunch of different “fair” and “appropriate” tax hikes over the course of only a decade, it quickly adds up to be a Huge tax burden.
      It cannot and will not stand. There’s a reason millions of foreign people come to this country from ALL over the world. America is the last stronghold for LOW taxes, freedom, and opportunity. Nowhere else in the world has that.
      Raising taxes at this point is pointless anyways, and educated people on both sides know that. We are so far in debt that the only way to keep it going is to print more money like they’ve been doing. At this point more taxes does nothing to increase any budgets or get more spending projects done. It’s a political stunt to make non-working liberals feel good that corporations will be “Paying more in taxes”, “stick it to the man”. They’re not going to pay a penny more, regardless of actual tax increases. These are the same corporations that funnel stupid amounts of money to Biden’s inner circle. Biden will never touch the tax loop holes that corporations can use to navigate ANY new tax hikes.
      This is all a song and dance, and simply politics. The sheep only see the headlines, but never know or understand what’s under the front cover of the playbook.

  2. Jerry Smith says:

    “Since when have Republicans felt concern for these groups of taxpayers.”

    Always, Marv. Always. That’s why we want low taxes and free markets. It helps everyone.

    By the way, there is never a “fair increase” to taxation. Americans are far over-taxed as it is, and there is never a reason to raise taxes. Cut spending and eliminate waste. I’ll fight to the death any democrat who proposes anything else. If you insist on painting with a broad brush, find me a Democrat who isn’t for raising taxes to a punitive level for everyone so the government can redistribute wealth they way they want. I’ll wait.

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