Many of us will vote for whomever promises to drill more oil wells, build more nuclear reactors, and for whomever was smart enough to see ethanol for the vast fraud that it is.
Others will be manipulated into voting for people who will raise fuel costs with childish attempts to get energy that costs ten or twenty times as much and isn’t reliable.

Perhaps McCain should do what any self-respecting Republican would do and propose to end the gas-tax forever and let the government take the hit. Oh wait a minute, what am I thinking. Republicans only claim they want to cut taxes, but never seem to pull the trigger.

The idea of suspending the gas tax is completely ridicous. If anything, we should be investing further monies into our transportation infrastructure; specifically our lack luster, out-dated mass transit systems. Technological innovations and high gas prices in other countries have made mass transit an attractive option; the same must occur here. In case anyone hasn’t notice, numerous states, including PA are debating whether or not to sell the public’s transportation assests to private, often times foreign investors. This is one area, regardless of your location on political spectrum, where everyone can agree that the government must take an active role. Transportation infrastructure is the life blood of commerces. Lets put out of work contractors back to work to rebuild this critical network. McCain’s proposal to cut transportation revenues is either a political ploy, or a clear example of his inability to comprehend America’s problems.

Couple this with his idea that the market will solve America’s heath care system woes, and it appears Sen. McCain has absolutely no answers for America.

Americans do love to sit in the driver’s seat and it will take hell to get them out of it, but it will come…sooner or later …it will come.

Having the oil companies assume the burden of the gas tax for the summer months is a way of getting some quick relief to people and to companies who are being hurt by the high price of gas. Hillary reaches across the aisle again to propose gas tax relief along with John McCain. But she also has an in-depth plan for reducing our dependence on oil in the long-term, and she voted against the Cheney “oil company support package” energy bill, and she is the highest rated of the candidates at the League of Conservation Voters.

Why aren’t candidates pledging to drill more wells? Oil seems to be produced by geologic processes, not from dead dinosaur cemetaries, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t have more of it.
Unless you’re a person who likes to see his neighbors be poorer.
Or, have an insane fetish about cleaning the air incessantly, the way some dogs keep licking themselves until their hair falls out.

Hillary and McCain hope to win votes by pandering to the electorate. The suspension of the gas tax will only encourage folks to drive more while increasing greenhouse gases. Obama is the only candidate not pandering to the electorate on this issue. While he will lose votes because he will not support a scheme that will have little beneficial impact while increasing greenhouse gases, he is telling us what we need to hear not what we want to hear. I admire his courage and truthfulness.

I’m confused. If the gas tax is suspended, what guarantees that the oil companies are not just going to pocket the money? Wasn’t Bush’s business tax breaks designed with the thought that this would trickle down to the employees – which did not happen. Isn’t about 80% of the gas tax used to repair highways? If this is suspended, wouldn’t this put workers out of jobs? Where are they going to get the money to repair the highways? I would love to have lower gas prices but this seems to me they are pandering for votes and hoping people won’t look at how this affects things in the long run.

First, is this political pandering by McCain and Clinton? Of course. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could tell you that. Does it solve an of our energy challenges long term? No. However, to me, this raises several issues over the “gas tax” itself. We are told day in and day out (by some) that our national infrastructure is crumbling. In this case, I suppose my question is: where exactly are the gas tax revenues going then? Americans burn through fuel like mad, creating a gas tax receipt that would probably stretch the length of the Empire State Building (perhaps several times over). If the gas tax is supposedly a dedicated source of funding for our national highways and other infrastructure projects, how is it that maintenance is not occurring, as we’re told? Or is the truth that, much like the “Social Security trust fund”, Congress dips into the “gas tax” revenues at will, for any and all purposes, short-changing projects that may actually be deserving of support? I feel that the gas tax is yet another charade by the federal government. It’s part price-control (which doesn’t really work anyway – gas prices haven’t exactly been “controlled” lately), part “revenue source”. It doesn’t dampen demand (as supporters contend), and it certainly doesn’t provide a dedicated source of funding for highway/infrastructure projects. If that were true, this country should never have an unpaved highway or crumbling bridge. It’s just another federal tax that is used for whatever Congress damn well feels like, and opponents of the “holiday” seem scared into believing that if the summer suspension occurs, bridges will begin crumbling and roads cracking. Again, I don’t believe suspending the tax for a few months really solves anything, but we shouldn’t act like Armageddon is around the corner if this “holiday” actually happens.

Administrations, particularly the present one, have always engaged in a form of terrorism (formerly known as scare tactics). Today attack on the American people is that a cut in the gas-tax will force the collapse of every bridge in America. Another popular attack has been that if Congress does not give Bush an open check on Iraq, America will burn in a “Sea of Fire”. Political threats are simply political ways of getting what one wants at any cost. As you mentioned Gent, a cut in the gas tax will do nothing more than take some cash out of the politicians pet projects. This certainly would not be a bad thing. I would prefer to see the gas tax eliminated all together even at the threat of higher gas prices (this is inevitable) if this would get us one step closer to stopping the unforgivable waste in Washington. But I’m not niave enough to believe a tax would not appear somewhere else. Politicians do this stuff for a living, we can only fight it when we get a break from trying to survive.
JP