THE PELOSI PREMIUM: Congress Wants to Hike One Tax That Mostly Punishes the Poor.

New taxes are always bad news, but this one is particularly alarming. Gas taxes and other levies on transportation disproportionately hurt poor and working-class Americans, who, after a year of lockdown-induced recession, can hardly afford another gut punch from our political class.

But everyone uses gas, right?

Well, not in the same amounts. Some people have cars while others do without, and some take public transit while others commute via car. The result is that lower-income Americans disproportionately spend a higher share of their income on transportation. The average American spends 13 percent of their income on transportation, but the bottom 20 percent of earners typically spend 29 percent of their income on it—more than twice as much.

The overall trend is quite clear: Wealthier people tend to spend much less of their income on transportation costs.

I’m old enough to remember when “tax the poor” was an early Rush Limbaugh gag.