Glenn Youngkin proposed suspending Virginia’s gas tax for three months.
Senate Democrats killed it, 21-18.
On July 1, the tax they protected climbs again — from 31.7 to 32.6 cents a gallon. It has gone up almost every July since 2020. You were never asked.
In 2020 the Democrat-run General Assembly tied Virginia’s gas tax to inflation, and Gov. Ralph Northam signed it into law. Every July 1, the rate climbs on its own, indexed to the consumer price index.
No annual vote. No roll call. No fingerprints.
That was the point. A tax that raises itself spares every Democrat in Richmond from ever casting a vote to raise your gas tax. A conservative analysis put it plainly: government protected itself from inflation, but not you.
Fairfax conservatives flagged this years ago — the Committee called it Northam’s hidden gasoline tax hike. It was hidden by design.
Walk the numbers. The state gas tax was 16.2 cents on January 1, 2020. It hit 21.2 cents that July, 28 cents in 2023, 29.8 in 2024, 30.8 in 2025, and 32.6 on July 1.
Virginia’s gas tax has doubled in six years.
Not one of those increases needed a vote. Democrats wrote the increase into the formula and walked away.
Stack the separate wholesale tax on top and the real bite at the pump is 42.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 43.5 cents on diesel. Virginia now ranks among the ten highest gas-tax states in the country.
That 43.5-cent diesel rate rides on every grocery truck and contractor van in the Commonwealth — and gets passed straight down the aisle to you.
Youngkin fought it. His three-month suspension would have cut about 26 cents off every gallon, and he delayed one scheduled increase a full year. Senate Democrats voted the relief down, insisting a tax cut wouldn’t help you anyway.
The relief they rejected was real money back in your pocket. They kept it, and the formula went right on climbing.
Global oil markets move the price on the sign. The tax is the part Richmond controls — and Richmond chose to make it climb on its own, every year, with no one’s name on the vote.
Now Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s Democrat trifecta runs Richmond with no Republican brake — and the formula keeps running, every July, on schedule.
Democrats wrote a tax that rises every July and put their names on none of it. Their names are on something else — every State Senate and House of Delegates seat on your ballot in November 2027.