I don't doubt that people will rage and scream if there's a small uptick in the state gas tax, but the truth is if no one told them about it they wouldn't even notice. An 8 cent increase is well within normal weekly fluctuations or price variations between stations.
Yes it's easy to advocate for raising taxes that largely don't impact me as I don't own a car, but I supported increasing gas taxes when I lived in car dependent Orange County too.
It is a regressive tax to some degree, but the regressivity is offset somewhat by the fact that lots of poor people don't actually drive. Improving my local public transit system would be a great help to poor people.
