IT’S OFFICAL: the Governor of the great state of California, Jerry Brown, has just signed a law implementing a twelve cent gas tax that will make your head spin. This is confusing and can make someone go made but here it is to clarify what the new gas tax will do.

Jerry Brown signed the twelve cent gas tax to improve state highways by 2027. This will rise state revenue by 5.2 billion(with a ‘B’) dollars, a 42% increase, after 23 years without a tax increase which blocked a 130 billion dollar repair and replacement project according to an online source. This also has a 141% increase in vehicle registration fees and adds to a 27 cent, and a 16 cent gas tax that already exists. The 27 cent tax is a 18 cents per gallon tax with a 9 cent price-based tax which will increase on November 1 of this year (up to 30 cents a gallon), and on July 1,2019 (price-based up to 17.3 cents).  This may sound small but the revenue numbers are in the millions or billions of dollars. We would all love to have just pieces of that in our bank account, but it will come in and go directly to the pump. Thanks to this newer law that will go into affect soon, Californians will pay a state tax and sales tax on top of the price of a gallon of gas which is $2.19 and climbing! This bill did pass on a 27-11 vote in the senate and on to the Assembly, but the people of California will have a say on part of this bill in June of 2018. We will get to vote on a constitutional amendment which will keep the lawmakers from diverting the money to other purposes.

When considering this bill, keep in mind that this will hurt Californians twice in possibly one day, at the pump and at the grocery store. Anything you buy that is trucked into Costco, Stater Brothers, or any other grocery suppliers, the price of what you buy will go up. The companies will have to raise the price of what you like the most at a restaurant or store.