Cunningham’s gas tax plan would ‘derail’ SC road improvements, top official says
Democratic governor hopeful Joe Cunningham’s proposal to do away with South Carolina’s gas tax to ease pressure on consumers’ wallets isn’t getting the backing of the state’s transportation chief who said Monday it would curb efforts to improve infrastructure.
Transportation Secretary Christy Hall didn’t name Cunningham by name in a press release Monday night, but said any proposal to eliminate the gas tax would “derail that state’s efforts to improve and upgrade our infrastructure by introducing a major cash flow crunch into a program that was designed through many years of debate and discussion by the state’s policymakers.”
South Carolina lawmakers passed a gas tax increase in 2017, phasing in a 12-cent per gallon hike every fiscal year, to improve the state’s crumbling infrastructure. The last phase will occur in July 2022. The Legislature also adopted a handful of fee increases, including a one-time $250 fee for cars bought out of the state and later registered in South Carolina.
Cunningham’s proposal, first reported by the Associated Press, calls for suspending the gas tax — which is currently about a quarter per gallon — and filling the funding gap using federal dollars and the state’s budget surplus.
The state closed the fiscal year — which ended June 30 — with a $1 billion surplus despite predicted budgeting struggles caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
But Hall said his proposal would leave the state with a $612 million void as it would take months for the Legislature to create a new budget sending replacement dollars to the S.C. Department of Transportation. If the state were to enact the proposal right now, state dollars to pay for projects would not be available until after July 2022, when the new state budget takes effect.
Spending logistics aside, Cunningham’s proposal would not likely get approval from the Republican-controlled Legislature, which passed the gas tax and overrode Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto in 2017 with bipartisan support.
“There is a major misconception that projects can be kept on track and this would be a simple funding exchange,” Hall said.
In response, Cunningham said Tuesday that his proposal would help South Carolinians combat rising gas prices.
“South Carolinians are not interested in lectures from an administration that has given us the worst roads in the nation,” Cunningham said in a statement. “If we could fill potholes with McMaster’s excuses, our roads would have been fixed a long time ago.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2021 at 11:10 AM with the headline "Cunningham’s gas tax plan would ‘derail’ SC road improvements, top official says."
