Gov. Henry McMaster said Wednesday that raising the gas tax should be the "last resort" for fixing South Carolina's crumbling roads but he wouldn't answer whether he thinks the state has reached such "desperate circumstances."
McMaster would not directly answer questions on whether he'd support or veto road-funding proposals in the House and Senate that include increasing the state's 16-cents-per-gallon gas tax.
The Republican governor instead repeatedly told reporters he's "not going to raise taxes on our people except as a last resort, and circumstances allow nothing else."
Raising any tax should occur "only when we're in desperate straits," he said.
Asked whether the state is in that position, McMaster said, "That's a very good question. The answer is we must not raise taxes on our people unless it is the absolute last resort."
McMaster, who ascended from lieutenant governor two weeks ago, said he's still studying the issue.
Wednesday's brief media availability marked his first time addressing reporters as governor and first public statements on the priority issue. He met privately with House Republicans on Tuesday.
Fixing the state's crumbling roads and bridges again top legislators' priority list.
Former Gov. Nikki Haley pledged throughout her first term to veto anything with a gas tax increase. Haley later said she could agree to raise the gas tax — unchanged since 1987 — only if legislators also slashed income taxes and gave the governor full oversight of the DOT. Her veto threat and stipulations made it easy for opponents of increasing the gas tax to block legislation.
Last week, Department of Transportation Director Christy Hall told a Senate panel that roads have deteriorated so badly, it will take a decade just to climb out of the maintenance hole created over the past five years. Roughly $28 billion is still needed over the next 25 years to bring the state's existing highway system — the nation's fourth-largest — up to good condition, she said.
On Monday, McMaster sought $5 billion from the federal government to help fund road improvements in South Carolina.
That's roughly the amount that laws passed in 2013 and last year collectively allow in infrastructure spending over the next decade, largely through borrowing.
"It is too much at this time to ask our people to bear this burden alone, heightening fears of increased gas taxes, delay, missed opportunities and decline," McMaster wrote in his letter to President Donald Trump.
McMaster said Wednesday he plans on traveling to Washington to meet with Trump or his staff soon.
