Gas prices, Sacramento, CA, June 13, 2022. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
More Californians Blame Gas Tax Than ‘Price Gouging’ For Highest Gas Prices
For many researchers, the fact that most people think the gas tax is to blame isn’t surprising.
By Evan Symon, July 23, 2024 8:56 pm
According to a newly released Slingshot California Topline poll, nearly half of all Californians blame the state’s gas tax for why California’s gasoline prices are so high, with only around a third saying that price gouging is to blame.
While California’s gas price has always been on the higher side, motorists in the state have been feeling a greater pinch in the last few decades thanks to ever increasing gas taxes. In 2022, the combined extra taxes, designed to get as much from gas now while the state continues to get more electric cars on the road, was at $1.30. By 2026, thanks in large part to a ‘clean air tax’, it will be about $2 in 2026. Even the mainline gas tax has seen a more than steady increase in recent years, including going up from 58 cents a gallon to 60 cents a gallon at the beginning of July.
At the same time, Governor Gavin Newsom has said that spiking oil prices hasn’t been to the gas tax, but to price gouging by the oil industry. In May, he even signed a gas price gouging law into place. The California Energy Commission (CEC) has had a different story to tell, showing that spikes in the last few years occurred because of refineries temporally going out of commission due to not enough oil getting to them. The CEC also said that lower prices this year were caused by many factors, including a cut in industry costs and profits, lower crude oil costs, and a cut in how much environmental programs are getting. In essence, it was multiple factors. However, they could even be lower, but as the CEC noted, the only thing that went up was the gas tax itself.
And for voters, that’s what they have seen. “Price gouging” is largely shifts in crude oil prices and companies needing to charge more because of added refinery and transportation stresses due to high demand. However, the gas tax is constant, regardless of demand and other factors, with lawmakers refusing to budge on it. Even a measure to reduce the gas tax by $1 to help struggling Californians failed to pass last year.
Voters have seen this, evidenced by the latest poll numbers. According to the Topline poll, 47% believe that the gas tax is to blame for higher gas prices in California – far and away the highest polled figure. The second highest, only 35%, blamed price gouging. In third place was the blame on California’s special gasoline blend meant to reduce pollution, which only 25% of voters said was true. Other answers included 18% saying higher costs of business in California, 15% California’s restrictions on oil drilling and refinery expansions, and 14% governmental regulations.
Paying more at the pump
Considering that Newsom has been railing against price gouging for years, about two-thirds of state still refuses to believe him on price gouging. But they sure do believe that the culprit is the last thing Newsom and state Democrats wanted blamed: the gas tax. And not price gouging, as there really isn’t evidence for it.
“Newsom made a big display of blaming refineries in 2022 when gas prices soared to $6.22 per gallon and the state created an independent watchdog to investigate market manipulation,” said USC associate professor of business Shon Hiatt in a statement. “But the investigation is ongoing, and ‘we haven’t seen any evidence of price gouging yet.”
And for many researchers, the fact that most people think the gas tax is to blame isn’t surprising.
“It’s a multi-factored reason in California for higher prices, but when you break down the price, the gas tax is the biggest chunk there,” explained fuel price researcher Glenn Brown. “The poll shows that voters aren’t buying into price gouging nearly as much as some lawmakers thought. They are still pointing at the gas tax, likely because it is creeping up more and more, with everything, including crude price, going down. It’s harder to justify price gouging when those common “gouging” fixtures are going down in price.
“$2 more in 2026 from gas taxes. That’s basic subtraction for people at the pump. It adds up quick.”
More polls on the gas cost are to come out soon.
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This is good news, of course; that Californians actually understand what’s real and true — with big assistance from news sources such as the CA Globe who accurately report high gas prices as govt-created — in the face of constant brainwashing and gaslighting from politicians. And most Californians know —- and have always known —- that Gavin Newsom is nothing but a liar who simply doesn’t care if he impoverishes them and turns their state into a hell hole. For starters.
Newsom’s push for and insistence upon Vote by Mail in 2020 at the beginning of the fake Covid hysteria era shows how much he fears clean elections and how much his political existence depends on rigging because with clean elections he wouldn’t have beaten the 2021 Recall and he wouldn’t have been elected for a second term as governor.
The fossil fuel industry has immense influence seemingly everywhere — and a disproportionately large quantity here in Canada.
Our carbon tax still induces some of the shrillest complaints — including, if not especially, by the corporate-hack news media [notably, Postmedia] — even though it’s more than recouped via federal government rebate (except for high-income earners).
Many drivers of superfluously huge and over-powered thus gas-guzzling vehicles seem to consider it a basic human right. It may scare those drivers just to contemplate a world in which they can no longer readily fuel that ‘right’, especially since much quieter electric cars are for them no substitute.
The disturbing mass addiction to fossil fuel products by the larger public is once again exposed, which undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest the consumer be deemed a hypocrite.
Societally, we still discharge out of elevated exhaust pipes, smoke stacks and, quite consequentially, from sky-high jet engines like it’s all absorbed into the natural environment without repercussion. … Out of sight, out of mind!
Also, increasingly problematic is the very large and growing populace who are too overworked, worried and even angry about food and housing unaffordability for themselves or their family — all while on insufficient income — to criticize the fossil fuel industry for the negative environmental effects/damage their products cause/allow, particularly when not immediately observable.
It does seem convenient for such very-profitable mega polluters.
Meanwhile, (neo)liberals and conservatives remain overly preoccupied with vocally criticizing one another for their relatively trivial politics and diverting attention away from some of the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. Albeit, conservatives are generally more willing to pollute the planet most liberally.
Ah, I see that the usual trolls are already here who come out of the wood work (or just Canada) whenever the Globe publishes an article related to energy costs. Highly ironic that they blame fossil fuels for all the ills of the world and then complain about the high costs of living while not realizing that these high costs are caused by the political class waging war on fossil fuels for the “feels” and causing the price of energy to skyrocket which causes the costs of everything else to go up in turn. These people want everyone else but themselves to turn back the clock and live in a pre-industrial world and accept drastically decreased standards of living So “progressive” of them.