Americans are feeling the pain of high gas prices; I just paid $4.20 a gallon at the pump in northern California. Needless to say, the presidential candidates are scrambling to be the savior of the gas guzzling voter. Both McCain and Clinton support suspending federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel fuel over the summer, but is this the right solution? Barack Obama disagrees, and I can’t help but think this is a band-aid solution.
The federal excise tax on gasoline was first implemented in 1932, although the states began taxing fuel in 1919. It is estimated that suspending this tax, as proposed by Clinto and McCain, would result in a loss of revenue of nine billion dollars for the Highway Trust Fund, which is used for interstate maintenance. McCain says he would shift revenue from other sources, and Clinton proposes enacting windfall-profits tax on big oil companies to make up for the loss. Both candidates are making Obama look like the bad guy for not wanting to save consumers 18 cents per gallon, but would this temporary suspension of the federal excise tax on gasoline really be the catalyst to change our current oil dependency and the harm it causes to the environment?
Apparently, Obama trusts the oil companies as much as I do. Last week, he stated:
You don’t know that the oil companies are going to pass on the savings to the consumers or whether they’re just gonna, you’re just gonna see an increase in prices, by the same amount that the gas tax goes down. And it would deplete the highway trust fund that we need for rebuilding our roads and our bridges.
I agree with Obama that this is just a “short-term quick fix”, and I can’t help that it is just a ploy to get votes by the two other candidates. I do, however, appreciate that Clinton wishes to tax the record profits big oil companies are scamming out of the American public, a move Senator McCain admitently opposes. In truth, the amount saved by consumers through the removal of such a tax over the summer months is only about $30, so what’s the big deal.
What is the big deal? How about improving gas mileage in all vehicles, providing incentives for car companies to vamp up production of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids now (and I’m not talking about some joke of an SUV hybrid that gets 30 MPG), stop farm subsidies for not growing food and put it into biofuel productions, etc. A “gas tax holiday” will not solve the problem of peak oil. It is not a long term solution, and of course, our bozo of a president proposes the same old policies to help big oil rape the American public of their hard earned income. Somehow, I don’t think saving $30 over the summer will help when oil reaches $200 a barrel.
Image: Judiciary Report
