Word: gal
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...using the figure of $27 because that's an economist's estimate of how much the "average driver" would save on gasoline every year if he no longer had to pay the 4.3 cents-per-gal. tax hike. It's a figure based on the assumption that the oil companies, long known for their exquisite sense of fair play, will pass the full saving on to consumers...
...across the nation last week, gasoline prices--which have soared as much as 25 cents since February, to levels as high as $2.19 per gal. in California--were provoking a chorus of angry protests from motorists and truckers. Washington, particularly sensitive to voter discontent in a presidential-election year, made a response that was uncharacteristically swift and characteristically disproportionate. Senator Bob Dole, first off the mark, proposed in a letter to President Clinton that the 1993 federal gasoline-tax increase of 4.3 cents per gal. be repealed, an action that Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested Congress could accomplish by Memorial...
...truth is that every tank of gas today contains fresh proof of the "consume now" ethic that pervades our culture. In 1991 Germans enacted with little fanfare a 60 cent gas tax to help rebuild the East. In 1993 Americans found 4 cents on top of $1.20-per-gal. gas almost too much to bear, even while we bequeath our children dirtier air, the continued risk of war over oil and a trillion dollars in fresh debt every four years. Now Dole's trying to get that nickel back for us. He ought to know better...
...there's a paradox in our pique: America's love affair with cheap energy is precisely the reason that gas taxes should be higher. Bob Dole and Bill Clinton won't say so, of course. They're busy sparring over a repeal of the 4.3 cent-per-gal. gas tax the President included in his 1993 deficit-reduction plan. But pandering isn't inevitable: four years ago, Ross Perot and Paul Tsongas were calling for a new 50 cent-per-gal. tax to be phased in over a number of years. The Big Three automakers and oil giants Chevron...
...rest of the world, our price complaint must look a little silly. Even at an average $1.30 per gal., gas prices are as low today in real terms as they were in 1950--and nearly 40% lower than after the last embargo's price peak in 1981. Thanks to these bargains, Americans slurp as much oil as ever. In France, Germany and Japan, meanwhile, a gallon of gas costs more than $4. Taxes there account for 50% to 80% of the pump price. Here, by contrast, federal and state taxes together average 38 cents per gal., less than...