Authored by Larry Behrens via WattsUpWithThat.com,
The final countdown for America’s 250th birthday is on. Families will be planning road trips, parades, vacations, reunions, and cookouts to celebrate the greatest nation in history. But in six states, politicians have a different idea for the party: raise taxes.
Beginning July 1, drivers in California, Washington, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Mississippi are scheduled to see higher state gas taxes. In other words, as the country prepares to celebrate casting aside a tax-heavy king in favor of freedom, these states will use the occasion to fatten government coffers one gallon at a time.
The worst offenders will be no surprise. California, Washington and Illinois — we’ll call them the Axis of Glut.
Their governors are often the first to fake outrage when gas prices rise. They blame oil companies. They blame “price gouging.” They blame world events. They blame everyone except the politicians who keep piling taxes, mandates, and regulations onto every gallon drivers buy.
Yet these same states already have some of the worst gas prices in the nation, some of the highest gas taxes in America, and now they are getting ready to raise those taxes again.
California’s gas tax is already the highest in the country and is scheduled to climb again on July 1, from 61.2 cents to 63.4 cents per gallon, under the state’s annual inflation adjustment. The same report noted California’s average price for regular gasoline was nearly $6 per gallon in early June.
Illinois is no better. The state says its motor fuel tax will rise on July 1 because the law requires an annual inflation adjustment. Washington joined the club with a gas tax increase last year and then baked in automatic increases going forward. Starting July 1, 2026, the state’s fuel tax rises by 2% every year unless lawmakers change the law.
This is the dirty hustle behind inflation-indexed taxes. Politicians get to raise taxes without holding a press conference to admitting it. They pass the law once, then every year drivers get mugged by a formula.
As of June 8, the national average for regular gas was $4.164, down 38.2 cents in a single month. That is welcome relief for families, workers, small businesses and anyone trying to get through summer. But the national average would look even better if it were not being anchored down by tax-heavy states that treat drivers like a rolling ATM.
The problem is not limited to the six July 1 tax-hike states. Seven of the ten most expensive states for gas are run by Democratic governors. That is not a coincidence.
Taxes play a major role in the high-price reputation of many of these states. So do their regulatory regimes, special fuel rules, anti-energy policies and climate mandates that make fuel harder to produce, refine, transport and sell.
The result is predictable.
Families, small businesses, truckers, and farmers all pay more. Then the same politicians who helped drive up the cost pretend they are shocked by the bill.
That is not compassion. That is government gluttony.
Supporters claim the money goes to roads and infrastructure. But that excuse only goes so far. Every tax increase is sold as necessary. Yet somehow the burden always lands in the same place: on the people who drive to work, school, church, the grocery store or a summer vacation.
That is what makes the timing so perfect, and so insulting.
America’s 250th birthday should be a celebration of freedom, independence and the rejection of government overreach. The American Revolution was born from the idea that people should not be treated as endless revenue sources for rulers who never seem to have enough.
Nearly 250 years later, millions of drivers will pull into gas stations in California, Washington, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Mississippi and get a reminder that some politicians still have not learned the lesson.
The country is moving toward a better energy future: lower prices, more production, more reliability and less punishment for the people who keep America moving. But these six states are choosing a different path.
America 250 should remind us why this country was born: because free people eventually get tired of being treated like revenue.