President Donald Trump said this week that his administration is thinking about suspending the federal gas tax. It is a popular-sounding idea with one structural problem: the federal gas tax is not his to suspend.
The levy (18.4 cents on a gallon of gasoline, 24.4 cents on diesel) is written into law, which means only Congress can pause it, and Congress has left Washington until after the November midterms. The White House, asked for a plan, pointed back to the president’s remarks. Republican Senator Josh Hawley has backed a suspension; Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and Representative Chris Pappas have carried versions of their own. In the House, Freedom Caucus chairman Andy Harris introduced a suspension bill on September 15, and Speaker Mike Johnson shelved a vote a day later when it became clear his own conference would not unite behind it.
So the holiday currently exists in its natural habitat: the month before an election, when pump prices are stubborn and every politician wants to be photographed caring about them. It is worth understanding why even a passed holiday would argue with itself. The federal gas tax pays into the Highway Trust Fund that builds and repairs the roads the fuel is burned on. Suspending it saves drivers roughly a tank-of-coffee per fill-up at the pump (the full 18.4 cents only reaches drivers if retailers pass it through, which history says happens partially and briefly) while opening a hole in road funding that Congress must fill from general revenue or leave as a deferred bridge. States, whose own gas taxes are usually larger, watch federal holidays for the precedent and the politics, not the money.
None of this makes the politics irrational. Gas prices are the most visible price in American life, posted in foot-high numerals on every arterial road, and a president seen to be trying has banked most of the available credit before a single cent moves. The opposition knows it too, which is why the idea draws sponsors from both parties and action from neither: supporting a holiday costs a member nothing in October, and voting for the funding hole is a problem safely postponed to a Congress that has not yet been elected.
If prices stay high into the new year, expect the holiday back, this time with a Congress in town to say no to it properly. Until then, the federal gas tax remains what it was on Monday: 18.4 cents, written in law, unbothered by being thought about.
