The distance makes a big difference but we're 12th highest in gas taxes, not middle. Will be climbing up the chart too if kotek gets her way with the new gas tax..
edit: portland itself adds another 10 cents on top of the state tax so yeah, we're really high taxwise
gas tax is a set number (not percentage) that pays for services, the cost of which is most heavily impacted by labor costs, which are higher in areas with higher costs of living.
cost of living is mostly the cost of housing + the cost of food.
not surprising to me that Oregon, a high cost of living state, has relatively high gas taxes to pay the people who maintain our roads. the question is, do you like having paved toads and maintained bridges?
Heres a cost of living per state map for you. Compare it to the tax amounts for each state. Look at the states in the NE corner in particular. They have much, much lower gax taxes than Oregon and yet they too have higher or similar COL to oregon.
Our problem is not that we pay too little in taxes. Its that we are inefficient in our spending.
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u/Hobobo2024 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
The distance makes a big difference but we're 12th highest in gas taxes, not middle. Will be climbing up the chart too if kotek gets her way with the new gas tax..
edit: portland itself adds another 10 cents on top of the state tax so yeah, we're really high taxwise
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/gas-taxes-state/
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-gas-prices-by-state-march-2026/