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Maryland motorists are facing the largest state gas tax increase in a decade, and can expect to pay nearly 43 cents in Maryland taxes on every gallon of gas starting July 1. That state tax plus the 18 cents per gallon federal gas tax means Marylanders are paying over 60 cents just in taxes, alone, for every gallon of gas they must purchase.

There are those of us who can remember when gas cost 33 cents per gallon; now the tax on gas is almost twice that amount.

In 2013, the Maryland tax on gasoline was 5 cents-per-gallon. You may wonder how that 5 cents increased to 43 cents over the last nine years. Surely voters would have known about and raised objections to these annual tax increase bills.

But, ah ha!

The legislature found a way to bypass the pesky need for open discussion and transparency. Instead of having to pass a bill to raise the gas tax every year, the supermajority created a "stealth tax" that would increase the gas tax annually, automatically, by tying it to the national rate of inflation.

In 2013, HB-1515 was signed into law by then-governor Martin O'Malley. For the record, not one Republican voted for that bill in either the House or Senate, and every Democrat did.

This past session, Republican Delegate, Matt Morgan and a number of Republican co-sponsors, introduced HB-144. This bill would have repealed the law that required indexing the Maryland gas tax to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The bill would not have affected the past tax increases, but would have prevented any automatic tax increases, going forward. That bill died in the Ways & Means Committee when the Democrat Committee Chair refused to allow a vote on it.

(You can find an in-depth report on this issue, in my Newsletter # 4.)