In a rare display of like-minded thinking across the aisle, politicians on both the left and right are calling for cuts or suspensions to their state’s gas tax or the federal government’s. It’s happening in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and right here in Maryland. In fact, this week our state is set to become among the first in the country to officially pause collection of its gas tax for 30 days in the wake of rising prices at the pump.
The move, which comes as average gas prices in the state have jumped 75 cents in the past month to $4.25 for a gallon of regular ($1.42 in the past year), will save Marylanders roughly 36 cents per gallon of gas. That’s $4.32 on a 12-gallon fill-up. If you multiply that by the average number of miles driven pre-pandemic (which we’re not back up to, by the way), factoring in the average fuel economy, it works out to a little over $21 a month.
That’s not exactly life-changing for most of us — especially when you consider that only about a third of any gas tax increase or decrease, which amounts to $7.13 amonth in this case, is actually felt by consumers, according to a 2020 report from the Transportation Investment Advocacy Center. (This is largely because fuel is subject to a complex pricing scheme involving the cost of crude oil and state demand for gasoline, and changes to the tax rate, which is paid by fuel vendors, are not always passed on to buyers.)
