A Gas Tax Holiday?

Several proposals have been floated on Capitol Hill that would give Americans a summer gas tax holiday by temporarily eliminating the federal 18.4 cents a gallon tax on fuel.  While the Administration is remaining neutral on the question, I welcome the debate, and think it is a terrific opportunity to have a larger discussion about the gas tax.

As the primary federal funding mechanism for our national highway system, the gas tax is increasingly outdated, inefficient, and unpopular.  When President Eisenhower envisioned our interstate system, he favored a user-pay method of financing its construction and maintenance.  Unfortunately, he was limited by the technologies of his day. 

Now, however, we have exciting new financing mechanisms that are supplementing the gas tax while simultaneously reducing congestion.  Through the broad deployment of high-speed, open road tolling technologies coupled with hundreds of billions of dollars of private sector capital, we can begin eliminating our dependence on a failed gas tax-based transportation model.

It is time for our country to embrace a far more efficient, clean, and technology-based approach to charging for road use.  This new approach will dramatically improve the quality and performance of our transportation systems.  It will also give businesses and families the type of predictable and reliable service levels to which they have become accustomed when making phone calls, running the sink, or turning on the lights.  We can also eliminate Washington’s ability to use our transportation network as its own personal—and political—sandbox. 

The increased efficiency of our system would also reduce our impact on the environment, and cut emissions caused by endless tie-ups and traffic jams.  Few policy ideas have such broad-based, positive impacts for our economy, our budget and our environment, and I am thrilled these ideas are now part of our national discussion.

What do you think?

-Secretary Peters

Comments

[Audrey]

I agree with the Sec. Peters approach but also believe we need to invest in commute options outside of driving solo, such as transit, carpooling, vanpooling and other transportation demand management efforts to maximize the overall system performance. We also need to raise the gas tax amount.

[Zane Royal]

As a subscriber to the Media Advisories, I see you guys handing out money for this and that quite often. Where does that money come from? We have the most complex infrastructure in the world, but in need of improvement and repair. Can we afford to have a loss of revenue? When someone does figure out how to lower the prices, we need to increase the tax and be sure it gets to our roads!

[Alexander Levy, Road Ecologist]

I laud the momentum away from a now-resented fuel based tax for financing all of our transportation infrastructure.

I also agree with the Secretary that innovative usage-based tolling for all modes of surface transportation makes sense in many situations.

However, as with every uniform approach to resolving dynamic challenges, tolling and public-private initiatives are merely one tool to achieve desired improvements, as well as routine asset management. Although, user-based reimbursement of privately financed infrastructure is also not a be-all and end-all solution in every situation.

However, I do not agree with the Secretary's blanket statement that ours is "a failed gas tax-based transportation model".

Had it truly been a failure, I don't imagine we would have even been able to pursue the goal of crafting the world's best transportation system. Remember the former system of tolled turnpikes and private arteries? They couldn't take us to the "everywhere" that American's live and work, today.

Yes, it has come with incidental trade-offs that brought many unintended impacts to the human and natural environments. Yes, it accelerated the creation of a congested shunt between urban and rural communities. And, yes, it has brought us both economic prosperity, homogenization, and adversity.

However, as a genuine socio-economic stimulus program, it endured to give America time-enough to recover from global economic depression, two world wars, one - protracted - cold war, the space-race, and to enter "the dawning of the Age of Aquarius".

In short, it bought America time to become better, stronger, wiser and considerably more affluent among the nations of the world.

That "failed gas tax-based transportation model" also provided ample time for our scientists and engineers, planners and economists to devise the blue-prints for perfecting the collective vision of our citizenry, our leaders, and our founders.

In our rush to build history's biggest surface transportation network, the challenge before us is to truly make it the very best system the world has ever seen: in terms of economic and operational efficiency, but also to be sure we mitigate the unintentional impacts to communities and natural resources that were inadvertent casualties of our zeal and haste.

To do otherwise, would devalue the public's investment in what we have built and is already paid-for.

So too, it is unnecessarily frustrating to wholly defame our arcane highway financing mechanism, instead of blessing it for what it achieved and then getting America moving forward.

[jim]

Put more support on Ethanol based fuel is my feeling on the matter. For starters it will be a major contributor on improving the environment by cutting emissions.
Secondly it will lower the price of gas thus making it affordable to the American public to raise the gas tax to improve our roads.

[m]

In what way is the gas tax outdated or inefficient? I don't see the fuel tax as an inappropriate way to generate income for the road system. We've already got a usage based payment system. Those that drive more use more fuel and pay more tax. In general, those that drive heavier vehicles and cause more wear and damage to the road also burn more fuel and therefore pay more tax.

What would be inefficient would be spending money to create a national toll system with electronic booths all over the place. The equipment and hours required to operate this system will cost a substantial amount of money. There's already a system in place that accomplishes the same thing. Technology is great when it solves a problem, but using technology just to be using it adds needless complication and cost. Besides that, the technology behind toll systems is not yet very good. In Chicago, the most economic and environmentally friendly motorists among us, motorcyclists, are forced to stop at the booth to pay their tolls. This is because there is not yet a tranceiver available that can be mounted to motorcycles without windshields.

The fuel tax is only so unpopular now because fuel is where everyone's money goes. If that revenue is replaced by tolls, tolls will become unpopular instead. People will never be happy about spending their hard earned money, but at least the current system does something to connect vehicle weight and the amount that vehicle is taxed.

[Jesse]

I don't agree with these comments by Secretary Peters who happens to be my boss in U.S. DOT. While I agree with her on many ideas such as "congestion pricing," I believe that the gas tax should be raised. It should be tied to inflation. A gas tax would encourage drivers to conserve fuel by driving slower, driving smaller cars, combining trips, and avoiding unnecessary trips. I also believe a gas tax would encourage many drivers to walk, bike, or ride bus/metro on many occassions when such non-motorized trips are feasible.

If the gas tax had been raised incrementally after 9/11, we could have reduced oil consumption, cut oil imports, kept low-income drivers whole by rebating their gas taxes with income tax breaks, and used the rest of the proceeds for transportation improvements. Food would be cheaper. So would fuel, because demand would be lower and we'd probably have fewer financial speculators, who some experts think are responsible for $25 worth of oil's march from $64 a barrel last spring to nearly $120. Consequently, we've sent hundreds of billions of dollars of America's wealth to oil-producing countries, many of which are hostile to America. We need to demonstrate that the United States is willing to do painful things in the present to ensure our future prosperity.

[Nick C]

Secretary Peters -

Even if the federal gas tax was more than 18.5 cents per gallon — I know at least one state, Nevada, has a law that says the state tax must be raised if the federal tax is lowered. I'm guessing others do, as well.

There's a reason for that. Road projects need to be paid for, particularly here out west. So, frankly, I'd rather you take my 18.5 cents per gallon (in fact, take 40 if you'd like) because I'd rather have new infrastructure, and more importantly, safer roads.

The west is in a crisis. We have too many rural two-lane roads connecting no-longer-rural areas. This is causing more head-on collisions and fatal crashes.

But I don't want to pay a company to solve this problem for me, any more than I want to pay a company to put a fire out at my home or protect me from criminals. This is what government is for. Raise my taxes, but make sure someone accountable to my ballot is running the system.

As for tolls, I embrace them — so long as they are system-wide. I don't think it's fair to put a toll on, for example, the bypass around Boulder City, Nev., or the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River, because you're just now getting around to funding it, but to leave Interstates 22 and 49 untolled because they got on the gravy train when construction costs were lower.

Take my money, please, and spend it to keep me, and others, safe.

[H. Bartling]

The main question to ask with regard to congestion pricing is where the revenues are spent.

In the places where it has been successful, the revenues are spent on mass transit and emissions offsets.

According to GAO testimony to the House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines given in April 2006, 84% of the 18.3 cents per gallon gasoline tax went to the federal Highway Account and 16% went to the Mass Transit Account.

The entirety of London's congestion charge goes to the mass transit authority.

If congestion charging and road pricing were used as an incentive for less polluting and more accessible transportation options, it makes sense.

If it is merely to be used as a strict "user fee" to replace our current expenditure structure that subsidizes highways at the expense of mass transit then it is less advantageous.

[JW]

Without alternatives such as transit and walkable communities its a dumb idea. We should not be letting other countries and corporations own our roads. Privatization is just another word for wealth transfer, and its not a transfer to the people who need it most. I don't mind tolls as long as the government redistributes that money to alternatives.

[Ned]

After reading Secretary Peters entry, I largely agree with what she has to say. A user-driven payment system would be ideal for our interstate highway system. That said, I agree with the comment that you cannot simply toll part of the system - its all or nothing.

In terms of this summer, I do not support any temporary suspension of the gas tax as it would result in more harm than good in the long run (i.e., higher demand for gasoline resulting in higher prices and significant loss in governmental revenue). That said, I would support the abolition of the gas tax if it meant a nationwide tolling scheme of our interstate highway system.

As Secretary Peters pointed out, a user-based fee system was impossible with the technology available during the Eisenhower administration. However, the technology IS available now and could be fairly easily rolled out across the nation's interstates.

All this said, I think the biggest issue today is increasing funding for alternative transportation options (i.e., public transport) which is still far short of demand in today's federal funding environment. The federal government needs to find a way to remodel both our highway funding and transport funding schemes immediately and implement them rapidly.

The bridge collapse in Minneapolis last summer demonstrated that it is already too late, what we need to do now is try our best to catch up ASAP.

[Catherine Huth]

I agree that a user-driven payment system would be ideal for controlling fuel costs and funding renovation of our interstate highways. However, no one seems to mention the segment of users that need should bear the brunt of that payment system - those people who drive the gas guzzling pig SUVs SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN. I'm not talking about those who need 4 wheel drive to navigate rural roads. I'm not talking about large families that need large vehicles to move about together. I'm not talking about independent contractors who make a living hauling their tools and parts around. I'm not even talking about the financier who at least carpools to work in his oversized Lincoln. I'm talking about the attorney's wife who does her grocery shopping in an Escalade while the Nanny stays home with her single child. I'm talking about the doctor who drives to work in his Hummer, while his wife gets to tennis lessons in one that matches his. I'm talking about the politician whose golf clubs are rattling away in the back of his Lexus truck. These type of people, who have so much expendable income that the cost of gas will NEVER be an issue for them, should be charged a surcharge for the size and unreasonable gas usage of their vehicles. Why not? It won't even make a dent in their pocket book. And if it does, maybe THEN the country will take seriously the crisis that we are experiencing and maybe THEN, these people will use their money and their influence to make a significant difference for those of us who ride bikes to work, drive Chevy Aveos, and/or ride the bus.

[Lenore]

Personally I think the tax should remain as is. I drive a fuel efficient car and I drive the speed limit or slightly above. I try to combine my errands. If more people would drive a more fuel efficient car (and it seems more people are trading in their gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient car) it would be a good start. Driving the speed limit or more realistically slightly above has helped my wallet as well. While my wallet has benefited, my nerves have not with the aggressive drivers oh so close behind me. I’m wondering if the high prices will continue to help eliminate the gas guzzlers and encourage better R&D for hybrids and electric and/or solar cars.

[robert]

Offering to lower, or temporairly stop the gas tax is an example of the worst sort of political pandering. The current gas tax is the best form of user-based fee system. It provides money to maintain all roads and bridges,ect.. not only the main highways. How would a toll system due that? If the contry is truly concered about the amount of fuel it consumes, and what the cost is to the public in both economic and evnvironmental terms we should raise the gas tax. Simply put, if gas is cheap, what reason do we have to conserve, or look for better alternatives?

[m]

Does Secretary Peters have the ability to respond to comments? I really would like to hear the advantage of a toll based system over the fuel tax based system we already have that accounts for vehicle efficiency and weight?

[Jon Holmberg]

This is a terrible idea, for two reasons.

The nation's infrastructure is already hurting and the gas tax is its major source of funding, in Colorado we are looking at a number of techniques, including raising the gas tax, to fund maintenance of existing roads and bridges.

The second is that a gas tax holiday will encourage greater use of gas, in an already tight market. This is bad for the environment, bad for conservation efforts and bad for our dependence on foreign oil. If the goal is to increase the efficiency of the use of gas this is exactly the wrong way to do it.

[FRP]

Calling the gas tax "increasingly outdated, inefficient, and unpopular" is NOT "remaining neutral." The gas tax has been and still is an effective and efficient means of externalizing the costs imposed by motor vehicle use on ALL of the nation's roadways, including but not limited to toll roads.

It's effective because it is a pure market-based solution that charges individual drivers for every driving choice they make: how far and where they drive, how they drive, and what kind of vehicle they drive. Tolls do not necessarily reflect any of this. Under a toll-based system, drivers only pay when they drive certain routes. They do not pay for local roads; they do not pay for state routes; and they can always choose alternate highways to evade tolls. In other words, relative to the gas tax, tolls shortchange local infrastructure of much-needed revenue and displace congestion elsewhere, often to inappropriate sites.

Nor are tolls fair. The gas tax has none of the above loopholes. It makes drivers pay for what they use. The gas tax compels drivers to pay for not only for every mile they travel, but also every minute they idle as well as every pound their car weighs and every second they speed. It leads them to reevaluate their fuel consumption in a plethora of ways beyond mere distance on the interstate--which is the only thing that tolls count. And precisely because of this, the gas tax empowers drivers as consumers more than tolls. The gas tax gives them the freedom to pay as little as they want. With a gas tax, drivers do not only save by driving less, but by driving more smartly: by speeding less, by keeping tires inflated better, by sitting in traffic less, and, most importantly, by driving more efficient vehicles. And precisely because of this, because the gas tax gives drivers the option and incentive to reduce fuel consumption in a multitude of ways, it proves a far-more effective instrument than tolls at achieving major public policy objectives such as maintaining infrastructure, lessening dependence on oil and stemming global warming.

The gas tax is also more efficient than tolls from a fiscal point of view. First, the overhead it entails is already in place (sunken costs.) Second, it is much less capital-intensive: with the gas tax, there is no need to set up, at taxpayers' expense, an elaborate system of electronic tolling. There is no need to establish and pay a new bureaucracy to identify, locate, and prosecute toll scofflaws. There is no need to hire repairmen to fix the tolling machines when they inevitably break down. There is no need to induce congestion and significant lost productivity through disruptive construction on the nation's roadways to permit tolling. The gas tax suffers none of these flaws. It is simple to administer, easy to enforce, almost impossible to evade, and widely understood. From an economic point-of-view, replacing the working gas tax with tolling, no matter how state-of-the-art, would be a huge, expensive step backwards.

[Dale G.]

It is unfortunate our leaders in Washington are looking at gas tax relief as a band-aid approach to the rising cost of fuel. Any reduction in the gas tax will quickly be offset by the rapidly rising cost of fuel, nor does the plan do anything to lower our nation's overall fuel consumption.

Although a fuel tax overhaul may be warranted, our leaders should be addressing the skyrocketing cost of fuel first. Lowering our nation's consumption should be the primary focus, as our nation's economy is hanging in the balance.

How about a temporary reduction in the nation's speed limit to 55 mph for a 6 month to one year period? In 1995, Congress abolished a national speed limit in favor of states imposing their own. Are gas prices outrageous enough for Congress to step in again and reduce the nation's speed limit in order to make a significant reduction in our country's fuel consumption? Less demand (consumption) would drive oil prices back to moderate levels and save our economy.

If any tax breaks are offered, it should go to those trading a gas hog vehicle for something averaging 30+ miles per gallon, keeping the focus on lower fuel consumption.

Let's pray our leaders don't take their eye off the ball on this matter. Although it may be a good idea to overhaul the fuel tax, the priority should be action that lowers the nation's fuel consumption enough to drive oil prices back to reasonable levels. After all, do we want our economy held hostage by those that control the amount of oil being produced?

[mrbview]

The large amoung of criticism about the gas tax holiday (from the media and especially from industry associations) indicates there is a lot of dependence on this tax.

Even AAA is saying please keep the tax on our members (can you figure that one out?). And DOT staff (like Jesse above) say they are dependent on a one way tax approach.

The level of criticism provides more than a little hint toward the depth of dependence on what might be a broken form of business.

Why are so many tax-and-spend liberals afraid of 'change'? I 'hope' they will reconsider.

* The truth might be that the presidential candidate of 'hope and change' is the one most likely to defend the decades-long Washington status quo for the big Democrat establishment types and their tax-and-spend programs. The debate over the gas tax is a prime example.

[Kathi]

Of course, it seems all taxes are unpopular, but I totally disagree with Secretary Peters comments about gas tax being ineffective or outdated. This is the most efficient and fair method of distributing the cost of maintaining our roads. The more you use, the more you pay. In fact, the tax should be raised in order to bring our roads and bridges up to par. I would love to see toll booths go away completely. They are a nuisance, causing traffic jams and placing a burdon of ensuring you have extra cash with you when you are traveling. This is very difficult for college students. I do think we should focus on more mass transit. At the very least, there should be shuttle buses provided for every large employer so people could park and ride. Many people live 25 miles or more from work. They would benefit the most from this sort of transportation. A gas holiday won't help anyone that much. Most gas tanks hold less than 20 gallons, which results in less than $4.00 in savings. That doesn't go very far.

[Bob]

The gas tax suspension is nice, but I think that the bigger issue that needs to be addressed is our dependence on foreign oil and the high cost of the fuel that is currently being sold. If the government does not receive taxes that means that they will need to make it up from another area. Big govenment cannot go without its taxes.

I am all for a company making a healthy profit, but it seems that the oil companies are taking advantage of the American consumer. Every item we use in our daily lives comes to us via truck and those trucks use diesel fuel. Because of the high cost of this fuel everything we purchase in order to live has risen. More and more people are going bankrupt, losing their houses, etc. Where will it end?

Paying $60.00 to fill my gas tank with 17 gallons of gas is a crime. Fix the root problem.

[Scott]

I needed to comment about a common misconception held by many that was stated in an earlier comment. "I laud the momentum away from a now-resented fuel based tax for financing all of our transportation infrastructure." Fuel taxes do not completely pay for construction and maintenance of the road network and supporting infrastructure and programs in this country. Many other sources of revenue are used such as sales and property taxes. Motorists as motorists do not begin to pay for the entire cost of roadways and the supporting infrastructure and other costs (e.g. air pollution), but are heavily subsidized by indirect funding of the entire system. Had we not made the costs of driving so hidden but instead tied all the costs directly to the user we would surely be much less dependent on oil today.

[Paul Minett]

Secretary Peters

I'm against a gas tax holiday. I think tolls and gas tax should not be an either or, question, but rather both should be used.

The problem that needs to be addressed is how to fairly ration a finite transportation resource, when there is no rationing on the key driver of demand for that resource: vehicle ownership.

Congestion can be viewed from the supply or the demand perspective: it is either too little road (so build more) or too many vehicles (so drive less).

Lots of small unsafe roads could benefit from being upgraded, but near city centres there is just not enough room, nor is it in the interests of health, to increase roading.

Since it is our God-given right to own and operate a car, incentives are needed to get us to share rides, be that in carpools, vanpools, buses, or trains, so that the vehicle count is reduced to match the capacity of the roads and have free-flowing traffic so that we do not waste time and fuel and our natural environment.

So I think we need a balance between road improvements, and raised average vehicle occupancy. And this will best be addressed through a combination of gas tax (a charge for having the roads available to use) and a fee for service (a charge for using the roads when capacity is constrained).

The next question is about how the money should be used, in particular the 'fee for service' (toll). The best logic here appears to me to be that the fee paid to allow preferential use of a public resource should go to the benefit of those who forego use of that resource. At the moment that seems to be achieved through spending on public transport, which gets massive subsidies in order to provide low-cost alternatives. I suggest larger proportions should be used to encourage carpooling and vanpooling because these are more energy efficient (on a full day basis, not trip by trip) than most public transport, and much more cost effective as well.

Research and innovation is needed to find ways to make carpooling and vanpooling a much larger part of the of the overall solution. If we could arrive at a 'new deal' for using the roads at busy times, we could reduce the traffic at a fraction of the costs currently being proposed.

[Joseph]

I think that the existing gas tax system is fairly efficient and mostly a fair way to fund the majority of all of the transportation systems. However, the gasoline and diesel fuel tax formula needs to be tweaked a bit here and there; and additional fees for alternate fuels and new energy systems must be created for the hybrid and gasoline free vehicles, so they are taxed in a similar 'user fee' way as the fuel tax does to gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. Another tweak should be to link the fuel tax to the price of a gallon of fuel. It would be simply a percentage of the cost of a gallon of fuel, rather than a set amount per gallon of fuel. Assume for instance, that the tax rate should be 10% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline. That would mean that when a gallon of fuel is sold, 10% of the cost of that fuel is the federal gas tax. So when gas is $4.00/gallon or $2.00, the tax on it would be 10% of the cost of the fuel.
As far as a new 'toll based' system to replace the existing fuel tax system, it has to be fair and user based otherwise it is doomed to failure. To be fair, it is a all or nothing approach, otherwise, the low volume local road system would fail and only high volume roadways would get enough funds to maintain and keep in repair. The cost of implementing a new system based on tolling would be absolutely staggering. Using recent toll system expansion costs as a basis for pricing a national tolling system, the additional cost of instrumenting the entire US roadway system, all 4.2 million miles of it, would be in the Tens of Trillions of dollars per year of 'lost costs' for at least a decade, (Those trillions of dollars would not improve a single mile of roadway, fix a single pothole or fix a single bridge deck. This is just to get the tolling equipment out along the roads). The gas tax has worked fairly well in the past and almost all costs necessary to adjust the fuel tax to a percentage of the cost of a gallon is already in place, hence little to no additional funds would be necessary to convert the existing system to the new system, and little or no sunken costs (lost costs) for developing the infrstructure necessary to implement the new way of taxing vehicles for using the road system; leaving the roadside clear of additional roadside structures (and other infrastructure) that would be necessary to assess, charge, record, and collect a hypothetical tolling tax.
A 'holiday' from the gas tax is a farce, a bad joke, and a boondoggling donnybrook of the worst type. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Anyone who tells you that there is one is LYING TO YOU. Gas taxes are what pays for the repairs of bridges like the one that collapsed in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis/ St. Paul. It also pays for the traffic signals that give traffic the opportunity to share the same segment of roadway when two busy streets cross each other. There isn't hardly enough money now to keep up with crumbling bridges and roads as it is. Unless the US government were to take the amount of money that the gas tax would normally produce this summer, from the obscenely bloated profits of all of the major gasoline producing companies, we won't have enough money to continue to fund the maintenance of our roads in the near future. We would probably run out of highway funds just as the winter of 2008/2009 hits us with the need for plowing & de-icing the roads during the rain, sleet, snow storms, floods, and blizzards of this coming winter. A gas tax holiday??? No thank you.
Please do not give us a gas tax holiday, but please do fix the gas tax by including fees for alternative fuels, for hybrid vehicles & set the gas tax as a fixed percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment

[David]

The gas tax should be retained and set an appropriate level because it's a system that's already in place, is easy to understand and is directly tied to consumption (as pointed out by several other posts). The problem is that the price of fuel is so high that nobody thinks "I should postpone that discretionary trip because I don't want to pay more of that 18.4 cents a gallon excise tax." No, the thought process is actually "I should postpone that discretionary trip because I don't want to pay $3.70 a gallon." The simple truth is that the gas tax is completely and totally irrelevant to determining how much driving people do. Suspending it won't change behavior one iota, unless you happen to perceive that a drop from $3.70 to $3.52 makes gas a bargain. Probably not too many people fall into that camp.

So keep the gas tax because it requires no new infrastructure or costs. But supplement it with an annual VMT tax so that drivers are reminded constantly (via their odometer) of how much money they're sending to those dastardly tax-and-spend politicians in Washington (to sarcastically paraphrase a previous post).

Getting back to the gas tax holiday question, I find interesting is that NOWHERE in the discussion has anybody acknowledged how difficult it would be to reimpose the tax at the end of the holiday. Who is naive enough to believe that pandering politicians won't characterize the reinstatement as a "tax increase" and demonize their opponents for voting in favor of reinstatement? Think it won't happen? Just look at the dialogue surrounding the temporary tax cuts passed by Congress in the wake of the post 9/11 recession. Suddenly, going back to pre-9/11 tax levels has been relabeled "the largest tax increase in American history" by many people of an (R) persuasion (borrow-and-spend, anyone?) In other words, there's no such thing as temporary, so if we're going to suspend the tax, we darn well better have a long-term funding strategy for transportation infrastructure already in place to take up the slack.

[matt]

we can blame ourselves for high has prices. why is that? let's start with the present and work backwards....

the price of gas is at a record high. obviously the price of gas is directly related to the price of oil. the price of oil is determined by the simple economic laws of supply and demand. (no the gov't is not to blame. nor are oil companies. all companies are in business to make money. as long as demand for oil is flat or increasing, the price will not decrease. if you don't like the price, don't buy it. yes, OPEC could increase production to increase supply, but why would they want to do that? so they could make less money and deplete their oil reserves more quickly? business doesn't work like that.) right now there is a higher demand for oil than there used to be because there are more people trying to buy it. most of those additional people live in india and china. india and china are buying more oil because they are rapidly developing. they are developing because their economies are booming from all the stuff they manufacture (or services they provide, in the case of india). who buys those goods and services? you do. you are to blame. we, as americans, are all to blame. we buy goods and services from them because they're cheaper than if they originated here. western companies, driven by capitalistic forces (or greed, depending on how you look at it), figured that out a long time ago and began moving business off shore. if we hadn't done that, india and china wouldn't be developing so quickly, wouldn't be buying more oil, and the price of oil wouldn't be so high. so blame yourself and all the people around you.

to make matters worse a lot of the shift of business to off-shore locations came at the expense of workers on our own soil. now you have unemployed people trying to buy expensive gas - it's a double whammy. don't get me wrong, i understand and support a world economy. but let's not all sit around and complain about something we caused. those jobs are gone. our manufacturing knowledge and trade secrets have been shared. it's too late to reverse what's been done. get used to high gas prices. they may come down a little after this micro price spike, but never again to less than $3 a gallon. only when people no longer want/need to buy oil will the prices drop significantly. that won't happen until alternative sources of energy are viable and mainstream.

one last thing - don't be fooled by politicians trying to win your vote in november by offering quick fixes to the problem. if the gov't decides to give us a "gas tax holiday" over the summer it's not going to help anybody. the federal tax on gas is 18.4 cents per gallon. if your gas tank holds about 15 gallons, it means you pay $2.76 in taxes to the federal gov't each time you fill up. that's kind of a drop in the bucket if gas costs around $4 a gallon and you pay $60 to fill the tank. the tax is only 4.6%. if you don't have to pay that tax for a few months it's not going to save you much money as an individual. but it will put our gov't further into debt in a big way. that's the last thing we need right now. gas tax money is used to build and repair roads and other parts of our transportation infrastructure. if we allow our nation's highways and bridges to fall into a [further] state of disrepair, well, we can blame ourselves for that too.