It’s hard to believe this, but several lawmakers have confirmed for me that there’s a plan to raise gas taxes on Idahoans during this legislative session. The word is that the proposal is to raise the tax by as much as 10 percent on the state’s already-high assessment of 32 cents per gallon.
The good news though, is that raising gas taxes has never been particularly popular at the Legislature. An effort to raise fuel taxes in 2009 failed so spectacularly, it took another six years for lawmakers or the governor to bring the issue up again. When it did come up, lawmakers wound up passing the bill in the dead of night. The optics for a tax increase this year are not so fantastic given all the other promises lawmakers have made and haven’t been able to follow through on.