Rep. John Larson, a Democrat from Connecticut, has been serving his state’s 1st Congressional District since 1999.
When he first took office, you were using dial-up internet if you were using it at all. Bill Clinton was president, somehow, after committing perjury and obstruction of justice, but somehow getting away with it because of his unique interpretation of the present tense of the verb “to be.”
“Patch Adams,” “Stepmom,” and “You’ve Got Mail” were in movie theaters, which — for you youngsters out there — is how we used to experience Netflix: We’d go to a big multiplex and sit in front of a huge screen with sticky floors and a projectionist who could never quite get the picture in focus. And we liked it, even when we had to walk uphill in snow both ways to see “Billy Madison.”
Not to go all millennial nostalgia trip on you here, but the point needs to be made — dude’s been there a while. And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent knows his job better than he does.
Bessent was before the powerful House Ways and Means Committee earlier this week commenting on the priorities of the Treasury Department, including as it pertains to inflation.
Larson was very insistent about whether or not Bessent thought the federal gas tax should be suspended, although he wasn’t quite eager for him to answer it.
“Are you in favor of eliminating the gas tax?” Larson asked. “Are you able to answer that or is that not answerable either?”
“Well, if I’m not interrupted, I can, Congressman,” Bessent replied. He then noted that the Trump administration had indeed acted to the limit of their authority: “We have asked Congress to move to eliminate the gas tax. That is done through statute.”
“You have moved that? So, you’re in favor of eliminating the gas tax?” Larson said. Yes, Bessent said, they’d asked everyone in Congress to do that.
“So, we can join bipartisanly today because you’re in favor of it to eliminate the gas tax,” Larson said.
“Again, the White House has asked for it, sir,” Bessent said.
“They have? Why isn’t it before the committee for a vote?” Larson replied.
“I don’t run the agenda,” Bessent said.
It was enough to turn Rep. Larson blank for a second:
🚨 OMG. Secretary Bessent just BRUTALLY EMBARRASSED this RUDE Democrat congressman
LARSON (D): Are you in favor of eliminating the gas tax?!
BESSENT: We have moved to—
LARSON: —Are you IN FAVOR of ELIMINATING the gas tax?! Answer!
BESSENT: Well if I’m NOT INTERRUPTED I CAN!… pic.twitter.com/CEqEjxcOds
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 4, 2026
Yes, the White House can’t act without Congress on this one. It’s a spending bill, after all, and Rep. Larson would be hooting and hollering about how it was bedtime for democracy if the gas tax were suspended by executive order, so you lose either way.
By the by, in case you were wondering what the hold-up was, there are different proposals from both the Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate which would repeal the tax for different amounts of time and address the loss of revenue in different ways.
It’s worth noting, as Reuters did, that “some experts… are urging caution in suspending the gas tax due to impacts on funding for highway construction and maintenance. Revenue from federal gas taxes comprise about 85% of the Highway Trust Fund highway account’s annual revenue, per a 2025 Congressional Research Service report.”
So not only are the reasons well known, either Rep. Larson has been in office for 27 years and knows nothing about his own job — including its role in introducing spending bills — or is willing to play that kind of idiot on TV. Neither alternative seems exculpatory.
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