Candidates Propose Gas Tax Holiday

First came Senator John McCain's proposal to suspend the Federal excise tax on gasoline from Memorial Day to Labor Day this summer in an effort to ease the cost to drivers over the summer driving season. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama both mocked the idea as "too little too late" and not enough. Now Clinton has jumped in the McCain station wagon and is likewise asking to suspend the tax for the summer, leaving Obama standing at the side of the road.

Mrs. Clinton goes one step further than Mr. McCain in that she desires to replace the nearly $9 billion deficit to the budget with placing a tax on the revenues of the oil companies. McCain supports shifting the burden to the general fund.

The White House, with Mr. Obama in agreement, has said that the tax holiday would save the average consumer approximately $30 over the length of the summer. White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino said that there are no plans from the White House to suspend the excise tax over the summer.

I wholeheartedly agree that the tax holiday is a short-term fix to a long-term problem and it IS too little, too late. I also feel that Mrs. Clinton needs to go back to school and learn basic economics as it is quite apparent that she does not understand how the burden of the tax would only be passed on to the consumer again - thus costing the consumer more in the long run than they are paying now.

I do not come here without a solution however. My proposal would be to release the strategic oil reserves into the market, thus increasing supply and lowering the cost. Secondly, stop paying for the pumps to not run. Open all the pumps and let the oil flow into the system, thus increasing the supply and holding the cost down. Thirdly, open up ANWAR to exploration and drilling and build new refineries. This may mean telling OPEC and the NIMBY's (those that cry "Not In My Back Yard") to shove it, but that is how you get things done. That would solve both the short-term and the long-term problem of high fuel cost.

Another proposal would be to accept that oil is not a limited resource from dead dinosaurs and accept that it is more plentiful than the oil companies would have us believe. Again, I argue that if oil is from dead dinosaurs, then how did the dinosaurs get stuck in the tar pits?

A good read is the book, "Black Gold Stranglehold" by Jerome R. Corsi and Craig R. Smith which tells how the myth of "fossil fuels" is a ploy by the powers that be to increase the prices of oil.