Over its 82 years, state’s gas tax has never cost so little

04/16/2007

By Conrad Defiebre,
Star Tribune
Last update: April 15, 2007


The biggest vote-getter in Minnesota's 1924 election wasn't a political candidate. It was a constitutional amendment to create a gasoline tax to pay for roads and bridges.

The new tax won in a landslide, attracting 116,000 more votes than that era's tax-averse Republican governor, Theodore (Tightwad Ted) Christianson. Months later, motorists started paying an extra 2 cents a gallon at the pump, the equivalent of 23 cents today.

Today the state's gasoline levy, at 20 cents a gallon, is not only lower than it was in the beginning, adjusted for inflation, but also lower than it has ever been in the intervening 82 years.

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