Senator Manchin plans to vote against Biden’s gas tax holiday

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) - Officials say Senator Manchin is planning to vote against President Biden’s proposed gas tax holiday.

On Wednesday, Sen. Manchin’s office confirmed that Manchin had several concerns with the proposed holiday, including the amount of money it would take away from the Highway Trust Fund.

“Now, to do that and put another hole into the budget is something that is very concerning to me, and people need to understand that 18 cents is not going to be straight across the board -- it never has been that you’ll see in 18 cents exactly penny-for-penny come off of that price,” Manchin said.

The federal gas tax amounts to 18 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24 cents per gallon of diesel. The proposed federal gas tax suspension would be through the end of September.

Sen. Manchin took issue with the timing ahead of the fall midterm elections.

It goes off at the end of September. Which politician up here is going to be voting to put that 18-cent tax back on a month before the November election? So, we just dig the whole deeper and deeper and deeper,” Manchin said in part.

Sen. Manchin’s office said he also called on Congress to start thinking about Americans, saying West Virginians have been hit especially hard by inflation spikes.

“We put over $5 trillion out into the marketplace and it’s all forgotten and all we have now is higher inflation and really more hardship on people that need some good decisions here in the Congress. We just need to start looking at the long-term effect of what we are doing and how we are doing it,” Sen. Manchin said.