$1,000 gas tax?

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State senate candidate Rob Poythress has been running attack ads against incumbent Anna Caballero on local TV. In one ad Poythress criticizes Caballero's support for the 12 cents per gallon gasoline tax increase which took effect earlier this year. Poythress claims this tax increase is costing motorists $1,000 a year.
Seriously?
Let's do some math. $1,000 divided by 12 cents per gallon works out to 8,333 gallons of gas consumed per year. Divide that by 365 days and we discover that one would have to burn through almost 23 gallons of gas per day, every day, in order for the tax to add up to $1,000 annually. For a car that gets 30 miles per gallon on the open road, 23 gallons would take you all the way from Monterey to Eugene, Oregon, which for all practical purposes is a two-day drive.
I could be charitable and say that Poythress is being misleading, but since this claim of his is so blatantly false it really falls into the “lying weasel” category.
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