Tax Relief Stupidity

Have you heard how John McCain and Hillary Clinton are pandering to voters this week? They want to eliminate federal gasoline taxes for the summer to give us a break from high gas prices. With gas pushing $4.00 a gallon, who wouldn't think this is a great idea?

Not me!

Gasoline taxes are the primary source of funding for our roads and highways, which, if you hadn't noticed, are falling apart. The highway trust fund already has a deficit of more than $3 billion. The gas tax holiday would add another $9 billion to that hole! That's $9 billion that wouldn't be employing construction workers who keep our roads in shape.

Clinton says she'll make up the difference by increasing taxes on oil companies. So oil companies would subsidize roads we all use. McCain says he'll cover the costs by eliminating pork in them transportation budget. Fat chance. There is pork, but nowhere near $9 billion worth.

Eliminating a good 25% of the year's road money would cost collectively us a bundle in the long run, while individually, it wouldn't save us much. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. You'd save a mere $2.76 per 15 gallon fill-up, or about $33 over for the summer if you fill up once a week.

I'm glad to see that one candidate, Barack Obama, is smart enough to see through this nonsense. He isn't interested in quick fixes that sound good on CNN.

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