The latest USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times Poll found that a majority of California registered voters want to repeal the new gas tax increases sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown.
According to the poll, 51 percent of voters now favor voting to dump the 12-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase first enacted by Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) in 2017. Only 38 percent are in favor of preserving the tax; 9 percent say they do not know enough about the issue yet; and 2 percent have no opinion. The margin of error was 4 percent.
Most undecided voters tend to vote against tax increases.
Brown, a Democrat, pushed the bill through in April 2017 by arguing that $5.4 billion a year in new taxes would repair deteriorated roads and roads, and to help modernize the state’s mass transit alternatives.
But unlike increasing income tax increases, which only hits a small percentage of the state’s rich, almost every Californian is already feeling the pain from the gas tax increase, as well as the $38 per-vehicle registration fee increase and the 20-cent-per-gallon diesel increase. Even zero-emission vehicles will see a $100 registration fee increase in 2020.
Breitbart News has reported that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association-backed the “Reject The Gas Tax” ballot initiative, which collected 940,000 signatures to put the proposal on the November ballot — far higher than the 585,407 valid signatures necessary to qualify.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association signature gathers pointed to a San Jose Mercury News study that found that the gas tax increases cost the average family about $1,200 a year.
The Pacific Policy Institute of California also found that most Californians now favor dumping the gas tax, including 67 percent of the Inland Empire; 63 percent of the Central Valley; 58 percent of the Los Angeles Basin; and 58 percent of Orange County/San Diego. The only major support left for the tax increase is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a slight 52 percent majority favor keeping the gas tax.