Governor says gas tax cut wouldn’t affect pump prices

Florida motorists hoping that the state will cut the gas tax shouldn’t expect much price relief from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

For starters, he says the matter is a “legislative thing,” and not something the Governor’s Office handles.

But even if something could be done, “our ability to influence the fuel prices are really marginal at best.”

“We have done gas holidays in the past. Sometimes the price just gets raised so that the consumer doesn’t see any difference. I mean, you know, if the gas is $4 a gallon, whether you’re paying tax or not, if you’re paying $4. That’s what people notice, right? And I think when we did it in the past … I don’t think the consumer really felt relief because of the way the prices fluctuate,” DeSantis said.

Even the last tax holiday in 2022 was subsidized with money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. That proposal was originally intended to be indefinite in length, though it ended up as just a one-month reprieve.

This time around, DeSantis believes that the solutions for wallet woes should come from Washington, D.C., and the global markets thrown into unprecedented chaos by war in the Middle East between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other.

“I think the ultimate solution is to make sure that you have good markets and energy internationally. It’s going to be something that’s going to be more in the bucket of the federal government than us,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis acknowledges a “pretty abrupt shift upwards” in gas prices, which he frames as “just a cost of life that you have to bear, to be able to meet your responsibilities.”

“If the price of tennis shoes go up, well, then maybe you can mitigate that. But (with) fuel, people are going to, by and large, have to shoulder higher fuel costs when fuel spikes. So my answer is just get the cost down internationally, and that means having stable energy markets, making sure we’re doing everything to get our stuff to market.”

He also believes that a tax cut is pointless if gas stations “just raise it to the same price anyway,” which means “no one’s really benefited from that at that point.”