33
stayed relatively constant at approximately 9%. Overall, public support for increasing the state’s
gasoline tax did not exist in the state during the 1980s.
Table 6
Political Attitudes Regarding Increasing Gasoline Taxes
“Let’s suppose that the state needed to raise additional money and taxes had to be raised. I am
going to read you a number of things that could be done as a means of raising more money and I
would like you to tell me whether you favor or oppose each one.” Increase the State Gasoline Tax
Year
Favor
Strongly
Favor
Somewhat
Favor
Total
Oppose
Strongly
Oppose
Somewhat
Oppose
Total
1980
%
8.8
%
13.4
%
22.2
%
58.1
%
18.4
%
76.5
1981
9.0
17.3
26.3
58.3
14.2
72.5
1982
8.7
24.6
33.3
48.3
16.4
64.7
1986
8.7
25.3
34.0
38.0
25.7
63.7
SOURCE: The Field Institute. Field (California) Polls. 1980-1982, 1986.
The second reason why the local option sales tax was more politically palatable was
because of the stealth nature of the tax. The fiscal illusion literature documents that if voters
perceive taxes as non-burdensome, or cannot account for the true cost of the tax, then voters do
not perceive them as unfair and support them (see Buchanan 1967; Mueller 1989; Oates 1975,
1988; Page and Shapiro 1992). Members of the state legislature believed that the local option
sales tax was politically palatable because the percentage increase of no larger than one percent
was hidden in the total sales tax.
In general, voters do not perceive sales taxes as being
burdensome on the whole. The whole amount is paid over time in small increments, masking the
total amount of tax actually being paid.
In addition, because the base sales tax was being
increased by a relatively small percentage, with approval by the voters in the county, the sales
tax increase due to the local option would also be masked within the total amount. Finally, in
order to raise an equal amount of revenue, the sales tax only needed to be increased by a small
amount versus a much larger increase in the gas tax to raise an equivalent amount (Watts 2004).
The Senate Transportation Committee estimated that a twenty cent per gallon increase in the gas
Convention