The Gas Tax Holiday Got Called a 'Gimmick' by the Guy With $5.47 Gas in His District

Two weeks before an election, everybody on Beacon Hill agrees gas is too expensive. That's where the agreement ends.

Gov. Maura Healey wanted to suspend the state's 24-cent gas tax for two months, about $120 million back to drivers, paid for with millionaire's tax money. On Tuesday, House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz pulled it from a $2.35 billion spending bill. His word for it: "gimmick." His worry: wholesalers would just eat the 24 cents.

The detail that makes it: Michlewitz checked the one gas station in his own district that morning. $5.47 a gallon, against a statewide average around $4.28. He's blaming the war in Iran and the president. Healey's blaming Trump too, and says she's "going to keep fighting for it." Republican Mike Minogue calls the whole thing "a political stunt" and wants to scrap the gas tax entirely, without saying how he gets that past the same Legislature.

So the Democratic governor and the Republican challenger both want a gas tax break, and the Democratic House said no to both. Meanwhile 128 amendments got filed on the bill and none of them tried to bring the holiday back.

What we still don't know: whether the Senate tries anything different, and whether anybody's pump price moves before Nov. 3.