Now is not time to start tinkering with gas taxes

Last summer, I woke some of you up by writing that we needed to raise gas taxes.

It wasn't a pleasant awakening, for either of us.

You remember last summer. At the time I said that gas stations were beginning to look like snooty jewelry stores. "Perhaps you'd like to see something in a high octane? Oh my, you're not going to put our product into that vehicle, are you?"

My reasoning then was that the nation desperately needed to get serious about either developing alternatives to oil or making vehicles more efficient. High gas prices also were empowering our worst enemies in the Middle East and in Venezuela, and we needed to stick it to them with a good long-term strategy — a strategy, I also mentioned, that ought to include drilling for more oil at home. We also needed money to repair roads and to build new highways.

Judging by my inbox, you hated the idea. You weren't too sure how you felt about my pedigree, either.

But now that, as I write this, gas is below $1.50 a gallon in much of the state, I have another declaration to make. Now is not the time to raise gas taxes, nor is it the time for Utah to change its gas tax so that it becomes a type of sales tax, rising and falling according to the amount purchased.

Powerful people in this state have been talking about both ideas lately. They seem to think low gas prices offer the perfect opportunity to begin tinkering with the tax. But while it is true that adding a bit to a gallon of gas might seem easier at $1.50 than at $4.50, there is one big factor that can't be ignored.

To quote Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign: It's the economy, stupid.

People seem to understand how devastating tax hikes can be to a struggling economy when those hikes come from Washington. They are just as hard, or worse, on the local economy when they come from Capitol Hill in Salt Lake City.

Now that I've gotten this off my chest, I have a strange feeling I've just gained a lot of friends among the vast reading public and a lot of enemies among government types and politicians, roughly in an equal and opposite proportion to how I fared last summer.

I can live with that. But let me say I do understand the state's gas tax dilemma. Not only has Utah not raised gas taxes in many years, it is collecting less from those taxes than it used to. As cars become more fuel efficient and as people continue to drive less, that trend will continue. The state recently suspended nearly $4 billion in highway projects, but those were to be funded from the general fund, not gas taxes. A gas tax hike today, however, could put some of those projects, such as the Mountain View Corridor, back on the table.

Don't do it.