According to the Concord Monitor, a New Hampshire Senator, who is the sponsor of a bill to increase the state’s gas tax, said that if the proposed gas tax does not pass, the financial burden may be passed onto the trucking industry.
The Republican Senator, Jim Rausch, reportedly threatened to work to repeal tax laws that benefit trucking companies, including a bill that increased truck weight maximums by 24,000 pounds.
“That added weight is helping to destroy our roads, and what do we hear from them? ‘We don’t want to help you,’ ” Sen. Jim Rausch said at yesterday’s Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting.
Rausch has proposed a gas tax billet hat would increase the gas tax by 4 cents this year and 4 cents again in 2018.
New Hampshire’s current gas tax is 18 cents per gallon. It has not changed since 1991.
According to the Concord Monitor, Rausch has Democratic support of the bill as well. Governor Maggie Hassan said that she would sign off on the bill if it reaches her desk, however, the bill has a long way to go before it reaches her desk and the bill has a lot of opposition.
“Senate President Chuck Morse asked pointed questions yesterday that made his opposition clear,” the Concord Monitor reported.
“I’d like to make it perfectly clear, whether you call it a road toll or a gas tax, we’re not changing the debate that we’ve had for years,” Morse said to Rausch. “While you and the governor agree with indexing, I disagree with you completely.”
To read more about this, follow this link to the Concord Monitor.
Source: Concord Monitor