Bill McMorris describes for the Washington Free Beacon how an Obama administration policy proposal has pitted one left-of-center interest group against another.
One of the nation’s most influential labor unions criticized President Barack Obama for proposing an oil tax hike that will hurt drivers and fail to create jobs.
Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, accused the administration of neglecting the construction industry by failing to hike gas taxes to fund transportation projects, while at the same time hiking oil taxes to please environmentalists. He said in a press release that the transportation portion of the budget was “too little, too late, and wrongly focused” because it favored mass transit projects over roads.
“It appears that environmental extremists have convinced the president to tax our energy sector through a $10 oil tax in order to pay for clean transportation investment,” O’Sullivan said. “It is a poor policy proposal that will cost drivers more without actually doing anything to improve the roads they drive on. The proposal also sidesteps the urgent need to provide sustainable investment for all transportation infrastructure rather than stealing from roads and bridges to invest in transit.”
