The Great DC Gas Robbery
WASHINGTON, DC—
By John Fredericks, Ward 2 Chairman DCGOP
Here’s a question for the DC Council: how much more do you think the working families of this city can take?
Every time a single mom in Congress Heights fills her tank to get to her shift, the District reaches into her pocket. Every time a home health aide drives across the river to care for a senior, the District takes its cut. Every time an Uber driver, a delivery driver or a plumber fires up the engine to earn a living, the District is standing right there with its handout.
Nearly 36 cents a gallon.
That’s what the District of Columbia charges you in local gas tax, on top of the 18.4 cents Washington already grabs at the federal level.
And here’s the part they don’t advertise: a chunk of that tax, the so-called Local Transportation Surcharge, is tied to inflation. It resets every October 1 and ratchets up automatically, without a single Council member ever having to cast a vote. It just grows. Your wallet shrinks.
That’s not governing. That’s a slot machine rigged for the house.
So as Chairman of the Ward 2 DC Republican Party, I’m calling on the Mayor and the DC Council to do something simple, immediate and right: suspend the DC gas tax for six months.
Not a study. Not a task force. Not a blue-ribbon commission that reports back in 2028. A tax holiday. Six months. Starting now. Who wins? The very people this Council claims to fight for every single day. Families east of the river who don’t have a Metro stop around the corner. Seniors on fixed incomes. Small contractors, caterers and the gig workers who keep this city running. A family filling up twice a week would keep more than $250 over six months. That’s groceries. That’s a light bill. That’s Christmas.
Who loses? A city government that spends more than $20 billion a year and still can’t win its war against the rats. Cut the waste. Don’t cut the paycheck of the guy driving a work van down Benning Road.
And let’s be honest about the pattern here. When President Trump signed no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, this Council ran the other way. It voted to decouple DC from those tax cuts so it could keep taxing the nurse pulling a double shift, the cop working overtime and the waitress on 14th Street living on her tips.
Congress stepped in and voted to overturn it. President Trump signed it. And what did the District do? Its lawyers declared Washington had missed a deadline, and the city kept collecting DC income tax on 2025 tips and overtime anyway. Only after the backlash did the Council vote to give those breaks back going forward. Don’t let them take a victory lap for cleaning up their own mess.
The message to working people from DC Democrats has been loud and clear: your money is our money.
I reject that. Our Party rejects that. Your money is your money.
President Trump understood something the political class in this town never will. When you let people keep more of what they earn, they don’t waste it.
They spend it at local businesses. They take care of their kids. That’s how you grow a city from the ground up instead of squeezing it from the top down.
Now, the usual crowd will cry that the roads will crumble and the sky will fall. It won’t. Six months of relief is a rounding error for this government and a lifeline for a family stretching every dollar.
And to the gas station owners: this break belongs to the customer. Post the savings right on the pump. We’ll be watching.
Here’s my challenge to every Council member, especially the ones who represent the ward’s hit hardest: put your vote where your talking points are.
If you really stand with working families, suspend the gas tax and prove it.
DC doesn’t need another tax. It needs a break. Suspend the gas tax for six months, and let’s start making DC great again, one tank at a time.
This would be great if it’s not just for D.C.