Gubernatorial candidates in Ohio and Massachusetts are racing to enact gas tax holidays ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, part of a trend among state officials eager to give voters a break from fuel prices driven up by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
Next week, Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature is expected to hold a rare pre-election session to vote on a gas tax holiday proposed by GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. His Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, has also called for “an emergency gas tax holiday to offer Ohio’s working families some relief.”
“Every trip to the grocery store, every fill-up at the pump, every monthly bill costs too much,” Ramaswamy said in a statement, noting that Ohio’s Senate president (Ramaswamy’s running mate) and House speaker are on board.
In Massachusetts, incumbent Gov. Maura Healey (D) has proposed a two-month suspension of the gas tax — a move that came days after Healey’s Republican challenger, Mike Minogue, released a statewide ad calling for a gas tax holiday.
“This will offer some relief to people, for Massachusetts families driving to work and school every day, to our drivers and truckers out on the road, to our Uber and Lyft folks,” Healey said at a news conference Tuesday.
The campaign trail proposals follow a wave of action this spring in states across the country to reduce prices at the pump. Lawmakers in Georgia voted to suspend or cut their gas taxes temporarily, while the governors of Indiana and Kentucky did so by executive order. Officials in Maryland, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and elsewhere considered similar proposals.
Average diesel prices hit a record high of $6.53 this week, AAA said. Meanwhile, the national average price for a gallon of regular was $4.49 on Friday, according to AAA. That’s up from $2.98 on Feb. 28, the day the United States and Israel attacked Iran, leading Tehran to block oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil supplies faced further disruption this month after a key Saudi Arabian pipeline was damaged in a drone attack.
With no end in sight to the conflict, lowering gas taxes is one of few ways policymakers can reduce a price that inflation-weary voters see glowing on street corners everywhere. Trump, too, has called for a federal gas tax holiday, but the idea has failed to gain traction in Congress.
Because gas taxes are a key source of revenue — typically providing funding for roads and bridges — even a temporary holiday can create serious budget problems.
In Massachusetts, for example, Healey’s two-month suspension of the state’s 24-cents-per-gallon gas tax would cost $120 million in lost revenue, which she has proposed to backfill with extra revenue from the state’s surtax on high earners.
Skeptical lawmakers have denounced the idea. Suspending the state’s gas tax would “limit our ability to fund critical infrastructure projects while doing little to alleviate costs for residents,” Massachusetts House Speaker Ron Mariano (D) said in a statement.
In Ohio, Ramaswamy has said his proposal for a 90-day suspension of the state’s 38.5-cents-per-gallon tax on gas and 47-cents-per-gallon tax on diesel would cost $678 million in lost revenue. Republicans are proposing to replace the cash by tapping other state funds, including at the Ohio Department of Transportation.
On Friday, outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine (R) criticized the plan, arguing that the pause would cost more like $750 million. “The next governor — I don’t know who the next governor is going to be — but the next government will face a real crisis if that $750 million is taken away,” DeWine said, according to WSYX TV.
In addition to compromising road projects, opponents of gas tax holidays say they also do little to relieve the financial pressure on drivers. Kentucky’s road fund lost about $20 million a month while Gov. Andy Beshear’s (D) 10-cent gas tax cut was in effect in May and June, the state budget director told lawmakers in August.
“I think if you went around and asked the average Kentuckian, ‘What did you see in your pocket? How much savings did you feel?,’ the average Kentuckian would say: ‘None,’” state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) told Kentucky Educational Television.
Still, economists at the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated in May that drivers would reap 72 percent of the savings from a federal gas tax holiday, with the rest going to suppliers.
In Indiana — where an April gas tax suspension is reducing taxes by more than 60 cents per gallon through at least Oct. 5 — drivers were paying an average of $3.94 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. That’s 45 cents less than in Ohio, where prices were lower than in Indiana last year, according to a LendingTree analysis of AAA data.
While Ramaswamy touted the Indiana example as “a controlled experiment” showing the benefit for drivers, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun (R) has said he will ask lawmakers to tap reserves to cover the cost — about $390 million through July, records show.
In Washington, pausing the federal fuel tax (about 18 cents per gallon for gas and 24 cents for diesel) has proved easier to propose than to pass.
In 2022, President Joe Biden pushed to suspend the gas tax for three months, but the Democratic-controlled Congress took no action. Trump’s call in May for a suspension has so far met the same fate.
Last week, conservative House Republicans tried to force a vote on suspending federal fuel taxes, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Republicans couldn’t agree on a plan.
“Republican swamp creatures are obviously tone deaf to Americans’ concerns over fuel costs,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, fired back on X. He added: “Good luck in November.”
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