The price of gas is undeniably considered by most to be a plague upon their existences. It is a commodity that everyone hates but can’t do without. The Maryland government knows this and they cleverly used this fact to make up for state revenue issues with a new gas tax. However, they took the tax too far this time.

The new gas tax increases the additional tax that the government adds onto the price of gas from its current amount of 23.5 extra cents per gallon to 27.5 cents per gallon in July. This additional tax will continue to rise to about 20 cents more than the current tax by 2016. There will also be increases in fares for public transport and fees at the MTA.

It’s estimated that there will be a $600 million increase in tax revenue from the gas portion alone in a year based on this tax increase. All of the money is going towards improving transportation infrastructure and improving public transportation throughout the state.

The revenue that will come of the tax increase provides an influx to funding for Maryland transportation, funding that was in serious danger of running out. This is all well and good but the burden put on consumers could seriously hinder the state’s economy.

The first most blatantly obvious issue is that once fully implemented, this tax will be extremely hard for families that rely on traveling and commuting to support themselves. If Maryland is the only state to increase the gas tax burden on their citizens in the next few years, when the tax takes full effect in 2016 Maryland will have the sixth highest gas tax in the nation.

This is an unnecessary amount of strain put on drivers, commuters, and families throughout the state.

There is also a provision in the bill that annually increases the tax every year, without any voting in the General Assembly, to account for inflation. This is merely an excuse to continuously and wrongly increase the tax without the bill being looked at again.

The tax would be better if it raised the tax to a more reasonable amount, like a 15 cent increase, and there was not an annual automatic increase. This is the first change to the gas tax since 1992. There is no reason that the state could not set a new tax level, leave it at that, and then revisit the issue years down the road if it becomes glaringly apparent that it needs to be changed, as it did in this situation.

There is no doubt that the increase in revenue will be great for the state government, but the way the tax was implemented will be a serious issue for families and consumers in the coming months and years.

Bryan Doherty is an Opinion Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.