Suddenly everyone in Washington wants a gas tax hike - apparently so that consumers dont save too much money at the pump. As prices keep falling, the politicians and the moochers in Washington want a piece of the action. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and even several Republicans in Congress have linked arms with the entire road-building industry and green groups that want the cost of fuel to go up. Ms. Pelosi wont even hide her cynical motivation: with gas prices low, maybe motorists wont notice that were gouging them. If theres ever going to be an opportunity to raise the gas tax, the time when gas prices are so low - oil prices are so low - is the time to do it, she explained. Thats rich coming from Ms. Pelosi who has done everything she can to stop the shale oil and gas revolution that made prices fall in the first place. Apparently if OPEC cant keep prices high, the Feds will. And these are the folks who say they want to help the middle class. Every penny rise in the gas tax will take about $1 billion out of the wallets of consumers. So a 10- or 20-cent gas tax will take about $10 to $20 billion from consumers. The politicians like to point to studies by the road builders and civil engineers which insist that Americas infrastructure is crumbling and that we must spend hundreds of billions of dollars to fix our roads, highways, bridges and airports. Now theres an impartial jury. Who do you think is going to get all this money? Yes, America needs more roads and needs to fix the ones we have to reduce congestion and potholes. But this isnt because the 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax raises too little money - $34 billion a year should be plenty and infrastructure spending is near an all-time high. But for years Congress has been raiding the highway trust fund and siphoning tax dollars away from roads to worthless mass transit systems with tiny ridership. Why should motorists see their gas tax dollars go to transit projects they dont use? If Washington would simply devote all gas tax dollars to roads, we wouldnt need a tax hike. Dont be surprised if gas tax hike dollars help fund Californias $68 billion high speed rail white elephant. The program has been so riddled with cost overruns, it may go down in history as one of the most absurd transportation project in U.S. history.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 02:49:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015