Redstate

if you don't find a way to off-set the revenues that the transportation fund would need. I'm sure we could agree that there is a way to make up the approx $9-10B that would be missed if the tax holiday was put in place.

My thoughts, and this comes from Speaker Newt Gingrich, would be to dramatically reduce the costs of the census. We could source it to FedEx, UPS, Facebook, etc for a fraction of what we spend on the current model of paper and pencils (and the $1.3B wasted on creating our own hand-held computer that didn't work in the end)

What are your thoughts on that?

"I really think screwing over the fund that is used to maintain highways should really be a last resort. It's already in the red (the money is used to pay back bonds that have already been issued), and our infrastructure is a mess. Doesn't anyone remember that bridge in Minnesota last year that collapsed? "

First, because it is important to be clear on this - there is no "fund" that pays for roads out of gas taxes. The only thing gas taxes and roads have in common is politician rhetoric and the occasional limit on road spending. Heck, MN just raised gas taxes to "pay for the roads" in response to the bridge collapse - With a CAP in the law on how much of the gas tax increase could be used on roads! Not a standard or guideline - a cap. As in, you don't have to send any of this on roads, but you can't spend more than xx%. (I think it was 60%)

The bridge collapsed because it collapsed. More money wouldn't have kept it up any more than more money in New Orleans would have kept the levee from breaking.

I wish I could go to my employer and demand a raise to pay my mortgage - a legitimate use of my money - because I spent my regular salary on booze. I think I'd have a moral imperative there right? I mean it wouldn't be right for me to sleep in the street just because my employer is too stingy to give me the money he earned and saved.

Why is there one set of logic for our lives and another set for government?

is that a portion of the gas tax funds the Highway Trust Fund which is earmarked for federal spending on highways. Here's a news source I think you guys like
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274113,00.html

books in order. I think the way they spend money is ridiculous. But my point was that the building and maintenance of interstate highways is not one of the areas that needs less attention only for the sake of short term political goals.

If it is a legitimate use of government funds (read:taxpayer funds) then let them stop spending money on other stupid stuff and use that money instead of the gas tax money.

Any advantage for the consumer in price will evaporate quickly. Prices have been rising and I suspect will continue to do so. This proposal is, at its very best, a bandaid on a sucking chest wound for a lot of people.

The market is responding. I'm seeing more and more evidence that at least some people are driving less and buying smaller and more efficient cars, or motorcycles, or riding bikes. All good ideas. Promoting that is a far saner policy than this idiocy.

That's because there is one link in the chain, namely the refining/marketing companies, that have seen a huge compression of their profits because of the higher crude oil prices.

Crude has more than doubled in the last twelve months, but retail gasoline is up only about 20%. The difference comes out of refiners' profits.

Take out the 18.4 cent federal tax, and the refiners will heave a great big sigh of relief and put the 18 cents into their own pockets. The pump price will not fall.

Gas station owners would be given more flexibility to compete, as well.

"The most dangerous form in which oppression can overshadow a community is that of popular sway" -James Fenimore Cooper

Real solutions require increasing the supply- taxing oil producers is not going to help the problem.

Therefore the solutions are:

1. Short term:

Fast track the approval of new refineries, waive environmental regulations restricting them

2: Mid term:

Exploitation of the Alaskan Oil fields

3: Long term:

Support the development of alternative fuels (something other than Ethanol please)

I think we'll wring far better results out of behavioral changes than anything else. Higher prices have, anecdotally, started to do that. Good.

Bike lanes, for example, would be fairly cheap to create in a lot of places and would actually DECREASE traffic. People riding a bike take up less space than people driving cars. It would also drive them to sidestreets and away from freeways.

We should seriously rethink our position on mass transit. One of the reasons I'm considering take the Pennsylvania bar (as opposed to here in Ohio or back home in South Carolina) is that in Pittsburgh I can get by with mass transit pretty well. That will save me a great deal of money. Devloping mass transit, encouraging it, making it viable could do more to cut demand than I think we can do to increase supply.

That does not mean I oppose increasing supply. It just means that we can do a lot to decrease demand, and a lot of that will happen as prices go up. Trust me, I don't like the current price of gas, and I'm sure I'll hate the next few months even more. That doesn't mean there aren't advantages as people learn to cope with it.