I work retail in a small rural town, and a register teaches you something cable news never will. You learn what a week actually costs.
Most days I watch somebody run one card, get declined, run another, then try a third. I watch people work a SNAP or EBT balance down to the last few dollars, putting things back one item at a time. Last week a customer played card roulette with a health benefit card, her EBT card, and a credit union debit card, then stood there while the line grew behind her, deciding which half of her basket to leave at the register. Gas and groceries fight over the same twenty bucks in these households, and gas usually wins, because you can’t get to work without it.
So when the General Assembly came back to Raleigh Wednesday and voted to pause the state gas tax, I had two reactions at once.
What happened
Republican leaders Phil Berger and Destin Hall called a special session over the weekend. By Wednesday afternoon the House had passed the bill 111 to 1 and the Senate 41 to 0. Starting today, the 41-cent state tax drops to zero and stays off through Nov. 30. You’ll still pay the 18.4-cent federal tax. The cost, about $362 million, comes out of a state reserve fund so road money is backfilled.
Regular was averaging around $4.12 a gallon in North Carolina on Wednesday. A year ago it was $2.86. Diesel is over $6.
The first thing that’s true
The timing stinks, and Democrats said so loudly. Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch called Republicans shameless and cowards, and pointed out that high gas prices aren’t new. House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said, “Something must have come back in the polls.” Gov. Josh Stein called it a “polling emergency.”
NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton spoke outside the Legislative Building and said she hoped nobody was “buying what Republicans are trying to do,” which she described as covering for doing nothing on affordability for the last nine months or two years.
They have a point. Berger brushed off a gas tax pause back in May as a feel-good gesture, and Wednesday he said it still feels good. The budget passed in July without it. Democrats also tried to add help on grocery pricing and utility bills and weren’t allowed to. I agree with a lot of this. They had months.
The second thing that’s true
It will still help people.
Hall expects pump prices to drop 30 to 35 cents. On a 15-gallon fill-up, that’s roughly $4.50 to $5. If you fill up twice a week, that’s about $40 a month. That’s not a fortune, but when your whole margin is a few dollars, it’s real money.
And notice this: Democrats voted yes too. They criticized the timing, then voted for the relief anyway. Nobody in that building decided a family’s gas money was worth sacrificing for a talking point.
There are fair caveats. Nothing in the bill forces stations to pass the savings along. Stations have to sell through gas they already bought at the taxed price first, and rural stations tend to take longer to turn over their stock than city ones. So folks out here may wait a week or two to see it.
The point
You can be an activist, you can know exactly why the lights came on in October, and you can still hold people accountable for it. I plan to. Ask what happens after Nov. 30. Hall says he’s open to extending it. Ask about groceries and utilities too.
But remember who’s standing at the other end of that pump. For a lot of people it’s not politics. It’s whether they can get through the week. Stay mad about the timing. Just don’t tell the person at my register that their extra five dollars doesn’t count.
Sources: Carolina Public Press, NC Newsline, WBTV, WNCN.
