- Biden called on Congress to suspend federal gas taxes for three months on Wednesday.
- But he has very few allies to count on in Congress.
- Schumer and Pelosi didn't endorse the plan and McConnell panned it.
President Joe Biden urged Congress on Wednesday to suspend the 18 cent federal gas tax and a 24 cent per gallon tax on diesel for three months in an effort to slash rising prices at the gas pump. It comes as the national average for a gallon of gas hovers around $5 with no sign of dropping anytime soon.
"Today I'm calling on Congress to suspend the Federal gas tax for the next 90 days, through the busy summer season, busy travel season," he said on Wednesday. Biden also urged states to cut gas taxes on their own as well to provide Americans with additional financial relief.
But he has very few allies to count on in Capitol Hill, rendering it all but dead on arrival. Many in his own party are bolting from the idea and Republicans are deriding it as an election-year gimmick that won't do much to bring down high gas prices.
Economists have long viewed the idea with skepticism as well. "Whatever you thought of the merits of a gas tax holiday in February it is a worse idea now," Jason Furman, a former top economist to President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter.
In recent months, the White House has taken steps to boost oil supply such as ordering a massive release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, paired with an easing of regulations on biofuels. But that has done little to quell the inflationary surge in gas prices, largely stemming from Western sanctions on Russia's energy sector to punish the Kremlin for invading Ukraine.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi poured cold water on the plan in March when some Senate Democrats started floating it. She said at the time that there was no guarantee that consumers would be able to pocket much of the savings.
"We will see where the consensus lies on a path forward for the President's proposal in the House and the Senate," she said in a Wednesday statement. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer similarly declined to endorse Biden's and didn't commit to putting a bill on the floor.
Other Democrats were not on board either. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a conservative Democrat with outsized influence over Biden's agenda, said he was uneasy with the idea. "I'm not a yes right now, that's for sure," Manchin told ABC News.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware called it on Twitter a "shortsighted and inefficient way to provide relief."
Republicans were uniformly against it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell assailed it and said "this administration's big new idea is a silly proposal that senior members of his own party have already shot down well in advance."