Laurel Libby

When the price of gasoline rises, the impact is immediately felt by all Mainers, especially those on fixed incomes or individuals living close to the poverty line.

For many, high gas prices mean less in the budget for food, or even having to make a choice between paying for fuel or prescription medications.

Ill-conceived federal and state policies have resulted in artificially high gasoline and home heating fuel prices over a very short period of time. Add to that the current international instability, and we are now reaching record high prices. Mainers, families and businesses alike, are feeling the pinch at the pump. Because basic necessities like food, medicine and consumer goods are tied to fuel prices, everything costs more than it did a year ago.

I have a constituent who is an Uber driver. She usually drives 27 different people to work in any given week, but for the last several weeks has sat at home because she would spend more on gas than she could earn driving. With the average price of gas now at more than $4 per gallon in Maine, we are all feeling the ripple effects directly and indirectly. We must act now to provide relief to Maine people and businesses.

This past week, I submitted “An Act to Suspend Maine’s Gas Tax,” legislation that would suspend Maine’s 30 cents per gallon gas tax for the remainder of 2022. Maine people are struggling to pay for their basic necessities in the face of crippling inflation, and in a rural state like ours, gasoline is absolutely a necessity. We need to provide relief for Maine families now, rather than waiting for the federal government to do so. Suspending Maine’s gas tax will provide immediate relief for families and businesses alike, and is the right thing to do.

But how would we pay for such a proposal?

Maine’s annual gas tax revenue in FY 2020 was $240 million. Suspending the gas tax for eight months (May-December) would cost approximately $160 million. Maine’s Revenue Forecasting Commission projects that our state government will over-collect $1.2 billion from taxpayers. After the Governor’s Supplemental Budget, we will still have a $200 million surplus, even with the $750 refund checks being proposed for 800,000 Maine income tax filers. The unallocated $200 million would clearly cover any losses to the highway fund, public safety, cities and towns, and other recipients of state gas tax revenues.

Providing gas tax relief to all Mainers is a way to help everyone, right now. Suspending Maine’s gas tax will help families struggling to pay for groceries, workers driving long commutes, low wage earners, the transportation and fishing industries, retirees living on a fixed income, and just about every other Mainer I could name.

“An Act to Suspend Maine’s Gas Tax” would also provide equitable relief for citizens that will not receive the proposed $750 checks because they did not file a 2021 tax return.

We have the funds (your tax dollars) to suspend the gas tax without any loss to existing programs, the highway fund, or the proposal to send $750 checks to Mainers. Money that is not returned to Mainers will go toward growing the state government at the expense of our economy and family budgets that grow smaller by the day.

I trust that Maine people, rather than the government, know best how to spend their hard-earned money as we face the highest inflation in more than 40 years.

Laurel Libby is a member of the Maine House of Representatives, District 90, serving Minot and part of Auburn.