President Trump on Wednesday said he in favor of a 25-cent gas tax hike to pay for his infrastructure plan.
He told lawmakers and senior White House officials that he endorses a gas tax hike, sources familiar with the meeting told Axios.
Sen. Tom Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, was in the meeting and confirmed in a statement that the president backed a 25-cent increase.
“President Trump came back to the idea of a 25 cent increase several times throughout the meeting,” Carper said in a statement.
“While there are a number of issues on which President Trump and I disagree, today, we agreed that things worth having are worth paying for, and the president even offered to help provide the leadership necessary so that we could do something that has proven difficult in the past.”
The administration unveiled an infrastructure proposal earlier this week. It did not include an increase in the gas tax.
{mosads}Officials have been mulling an increase in the federal gasoline tax for months as a means to pay for the infrastructure package.
Tom Donohue, president of the Chamber of Commerce, called last month for a 25-cent increase over five years, but said that he would also support a one-time 25-cent increase.
The gas tax supports the Highway Trust Fund to pay for road projects, and has not been raised in more than two decades.
The White House unveiled Trump’s long-awaited infrastructure overhaul on Monday, a $1.5 trillion package that would include a $200 billion contribution from the federal government.
– Updated at 5:19 p.m.