In an unexpected political alliance, James Talarico publicly supported President Donald Trump’s recent call to suspend the federal gas tax, while also criticizing U.S. Senator John Cornyn for his prior opposition to such measures.
Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been advocating for a temporary suspension of the federal gas and diesel tax to alleviate rising fuel prices, a stance he adopted following the onset of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran earlier this year. On Monday, Trump announced his intention to suspend the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax, which primarily funds federal highway and mass transit initiatives.
“I commend President Trump for endorsing a suspension of the federal gas tax,” Talarico stated. “Reducing pump prices should be a bipartisan goal. I urge Senator Cornyn to reconsider his stance and join President Trump and me in supporting this vital tax relief for Texans.”
Previously, Cornyn dismissed the proposal as “not really a solution” and expressed concerns that it would significantly increase the deficit. However, following Trump’s endorsement, Cornyn indicated he might be open to a temporary gas tax holiday.
“There’s a distinction between a temporary suspension and a permanent one,” Cornyn told reporters at the Capitol. “I’m not entirely sure what the president envisions. A temporary suspension could be feasible to navigate through this turbulent period due to fluctuating energy prices.”
Currently, Cornyn is engaged in a fiercely competitive primary runoff election against Attorney General Ken Paxton, a favored candidate of the hard right. Amid a broader struggle among Republicans to mitigate the political fallout from rising costs and a new conflict in the Middle East, Democrats are leveraging a more favorable national political environment, Trump’s low approval ratings, and a contentious Senate GOP primary to bolster their chances of flipping a statewide seat for the first time since 1994. Early voting for the Republican runoff begins next week.
Talarico criticized Cornyn’s earlier reluctance to support the gas tax suspension, contending that the senator is “never concerned about the deficit when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires or initiating new foreign wars, yet suddenly he’s a deficit hawk when it comes to reducing gas prices for working families.”
“We should aim to reduce the deficit by closing tax loopholes for billionaires and putting an end to this disastrous new war,” Talarico remarked during an appearance on CNN.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, estimates that a month-long gas tax holiday would cost the federal government approximately $3.5 billion, while a six-month holiday could amount to $21 billion. Given that the gas tax is set at 18.4 cents per gallon and the diesel tax at 24.4 cents per gallon, a temporary suspension would only marginally alleviate the current prices at the pump. As of Monday, the average gas price in Texas was just over $4 per gallon, reflecting an increase of nearly 50% compared to the previous year, according to AAA.
Cornyn expressed interest on Monday in exploring how the federal government could compensate for the revenue shortfall resulting from a gas tax holiday. Talarico has proposed addressing this gap through revenue generated by measures aimed at closing billionaire tax loopholes. These include eliminating the “carried interest loophole,” which allows investment managers to benefit from a lower tax rate by treating capital gains as profit rather than income; abolishing the “buy, borrow, die” loophole that enables the ultra-wealthy to avoid taxes by borrowing against their wealth for tax-free cash flow; and tightening regulations on offshore bank accounts, which are believed to contribute to over $100 billion in annual lost revenue.
