Gasoline Tax Increases in the American States: A Case for Responsive Taxation

• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X21989088
• Subject Matter: General Interests

General Interest

Gasoline Tax Increases in the

American States: A Case for

Responsive Taxation

Ellen C. Seljan

1

, Allison K. Schneider

2

,

and Dalles Bowen

2

Abstract

This paper analyzes the determinants of legislation to increase state gasoline taxes from 1985 to

2013. It closely considers the motives of the political actors considering adoption, comparing the

predictive power responsive government and excessive government theories. It finds strong evidence for

responsive governments: traffic fatalities per-capita and the proportion of bridges deemed struc-

turally deficient are among the strongest predictors of state gas tax increases. The conclusion of this

paper is that gasoline tax increases in the American states represents a case of responsive taxation.

Keywords

state tax policy, gasoline tax, government responsiveness

All fifty states employ some form of gasoline

tax. The most common tax is paid directly by

the consumer at the pump and is fixed in terms

of cents per gallon. Lack of inflation indexing

in most states means that gas tax revenues do

not keep up with highway expenditures unless

altered by state legislatures. As such, the level

of gas tax is frequently debated in stateh ouses

and increases are adopted with regularity.

Indeed, between 1978 and 2013 there were

174 legislatively enacted gas tax increases in

the fifty states, a rate of almost five per year.

This paper seeks to explain the timing, inci-

dence, and magnitude of legislated increases

to the gas tax.

To understand the politics of gas tax adop-

tion, this paper closely considers the motives

of elected officials. Officials may hold a variety

of conflicting motivations, born from multi ple

constituencies, ideological preferences, or par-

tisan prerogatives. Following a classification

from previous scholarship, this paper compares

the predictive power of responsive government

and excessive government motivations (Lowery

and Berry 1983) as well as other factors previ-

ously identified as significant determinants

of tax adoption (Hansen 1983; Berry and

Berry 1992, 1994). The original contribution

is an empirical evaluation of the desire of

elected officials to improve transportation

safety, an inherently responsive consider ation.

Whereas past scholarship concluded that con-

siderations relevant to political opportunity had

1

Department of Political Science, Lewis and Clark College,

Portland, OR, USA

2

Independent scholar

Corresponding Author:

Ellen C. Seljan, Department of Political Science, Lewis and

Clark College, MSC 12, Portland, OR 97219, USA.

Email: eseljan@lclark.edu

State and Local GovernmentReview

2020, Vol. 52(2) 103-113

ªThe Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X21989088

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