Truth vs. Lies on the Gas Tax Holiday

Capitol Democrats’ misinformation machine has been hard at work, churning out lie after lie about the Republican plan for a gas tax holiday. As support grows for a suspension of the state’s gas tax, we thought it’d be helpful to debunk some of the most egregious falsehoods about our proposal. 

LIE: Oil companies will just pocket the gas tax savings and drivers won’t see any relief.

TRUTH: The widely-respected, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office projected that most of the savings from a gas tax holiday would be passed on to drivers. More evidence of this comes from Maryland, which saw a 35.3 cent drop ($4.209/gallon vs. $3.856/gallon) in retail fuel costs days after it suspended its 36 cent gas tax – that’s more than 98% of the savings being passed along to drivers. Watch the prices fall here

LIE: A gas tax holiday would cut funding for transportation and lead to canceled or delayed road projects. 

TRUTH: AB 1638 would backfill revenue from the gas tax holiday with money from the general fund – which has a projected surplus of up to $69 billion. No road projects will be threatened. None. Zip. Nil. Nada. 

LIE: I didn’t have time to read the bill. 

TRUTH: Seriously? It’s two pages long.

Now that we’re done debunking the lies, the only question left is “Why won’t Capitol Democrats lower gas prices and let Californians hang onto more of their money?”