As the nation on average has been dealing with soaring fuel costs and record-shattering inflation rates, California is expected to raise its taxes on gasoline at the end of the month.
This scheduled increase for the excise tax rate is planned for July and will add about 3 cents per gallon to the already insane price of gas for all California drivers.
The state legislature for California does have the option to step forward and delay the tax, or even go further and hand the citizens of California a rebate. The idea of using the state’s budget surplus to put a stop to the tax is still currently being debated, but a few of the head Democratic legislators seem to be leaning far away from that option.
“They think it’s possible that gas suppliers could eat up those savings and not pass them on to consumers. And also because they went through a very, very harrowing political battle when they passed this gas tax increase back in 2017,” stated one writer at CalMatters, Emily Hoeven, as reported by KCRW.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has been attempting to push forth a proposal to try and send $400 cards out to all California drivers to assist with the increased fuel costs, but the measure from his office does not seem to have much support despite the Democrat-controlled state legislature. Hoeven did note, however, that quite a few legislators are not currently in favor of Newsom’s plan and would rather hand out $200 checks to the citizenry based on current income level.
“They say that leaves out the most vulnerable Californians, people who may not be able to afford a car and people that rely on public transit, and people that are feeling price hikes for groceries and other things in life,” claimed Hoeven.
As reported by AAA, the current average price of gasoline for the country is sitting at $4.98 as of June 20th. However, California sports an average of $6.34 for its gas.
Californians have been dealing with the stress of the high gas prices for quite some time in part because of the extremely excessive regulations currently placed on the gas importers and producers.
As reported by The Washington Post, the Air Resource Board for California has very specific rules for chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, and sulfur, which affects just how gas producers and importers can operate. Because of the heavy red tape, California imports quite a bit of its gas from the Middle East, stated GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Hann, as per the Post.
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