It is not often that the National Association of Counties, a fiscally conservaitve group, agree with Democrat County Legislator Damon Maher, perhaps the most progressive member of the Westchester BOL.
But both agree that a suspension of the tax on gasoline, on the Federal level and here in New York State, is unwise. The National Association of Counties argues that gas tax revenues help pay for infrastructure funding which is desperately needed for our roads and bridges.
“It’s not a long-term solution, for sure,” said Todd Kinney, Clinton County Iowa engineer and president of the National Association of County Engineers. “If they did a gas tax holiday in Iowa, you would see a direct decrease in your funding based on whatever taxes weren’t collected. So it would be very hard for the Iowa legislators to backfill that money. It’s not like the federal Highway Trust Fund, where they could just throw money into it.” Read the entire story at https://www.naco.org/articles/gas-tax-suspensions-pose-threat-infrastructure-funding.
Legislator Maher emailed us, “Not to mention gas taxes are a way for drivers and oil companies pay at least some of the environmental costs we all incur from the use of fossil fuels — healthwise, climatewise and financially. And by encouraging unnecessary driving, by not discouraging it, we further empower the psychopaths who preside over the countries that produce these fuels and rely on the revenues from sale of same to fund their evil, bloody deeds. Conserving some energy by driving a little less or setting the thermostat a little lower to reduce Russia’s power is the least we could do, a small inconvenience compared to what courageous Ukrainians are enduring,” said Legislator Maher.
The other issue with reducing the gas tax in New York is that it won’t happen until June. I guess that any time that we can see a reduction of 16 cents per gallon at the pump is a good thing, but prices are already going down when you fill up. Here in Northern Westchester we see $3.99 per gallon, the first time that its less than $4 since the war in Ukraine started.
