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ORIGINAL: Aught Six
Screw the gas tax. I say suspend it.
Which is the bigger problem:*Americans' consumption of petroleum, or the federal government's monstrous bloat? The fact that these dip****s making three figures in Washington have the nerve to urge limited consumption, but can't bear to spend our tax money responsibly, makes want to say, "F--- 'em and feed 'em fish heads..."
Give me my money, you old ****s...
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Darn straight!
I'm not sure the "It'll take funds away from our transportation infrastructure" argument is a good one. We can cut costs elsewhere to make up what a gasoline tax reduction/suspension would take away from our transportation budget. And don't anybody for a minute think that there aren't plenty of places where the pork could be cut. If it can't be cut from our domestic budget, how about a nice big reduction in the amount of foreign aid we send out? These are difficult times that call for difficult decisions, and too many of the governments we're aiding do too much criticizing of American foreign policy anyway. For that matter, I think it would be interesting to see some figures on how much foreign aid (maintaining a military presence, if nothing else) is costing us that goes directly to nations that are OPECKERS that are part of our current problem anyway.
It's easy to say that the real solutions are to use less (not likely to make a big dent) or find an alternative fuel (which would take decades). Gas prices alone are going to drive us straight into the worst economic times we've seen since the early '80s within the next 4 to 6 quarters, IMO.
Will a temporary suspension of the gasoline tax provide a long-term solution? Of course not. OPEC and our good ol' oil companies are intent on milking us dry to line their own pockets, and gasoline prices per gallon sans the tax would be back to the current levels in short order.
Increasing domestic drilling would be a small part of the solution. The ANWR would be a good place to start. Off-shore drilling would be another. Perhaps another part of the solution would be to adopt the attitude of Congressman Lincoln Davis, who recently said "If I were president, I"d go to Saudi Arabia and say, "Listen, we saved you from a dictator named Saddam Hussein. We need some oil.' And I"d go to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and say, "You"ve got big oil reserves and we saved you from conquest. We need some help." I"d go to other countries that have oil reserves who we"ve helped and ask them to start producing and say, "This isn"t a request. It"s a demand. Or otherwise you can start taking care of your own problems.""
But perhaps the best solution at this point, until we can develop an alternative, is for the government to get into the oil business. The conservative in me cringes at that idea. But the realist in me says that even the federal government wouldn't be as greedy as Exxon, et al.
For or against McCain's gas tax "holiday"?
