Word: gal
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Most people say they'd be willing to pay their share to cut the deficit, but then, when a share is proposed for them to pay, they go nuts. Like the woman I saw on TV, informed of the Senate's proposed 4.3 cents-per-gal. gas-tax increase, who looked into the camera and said it would kill her. Well, maybe she said, "It would be a killer." But the point was clear to any Congressman who happened to be watching: over her dead body...
...presumably, had taken the time to help her calculate what 4.3 cents per gal. means. To a typical driver (12,000 miles a year at 20 miles to the gallon), it means $25.80 a year. Why is this national news...
...There's only one problem with the Davies baby," ran the tag line for a particularly repulsive horror movie some years ago: "It's alive!" Well, there's only one problem with the 4.3 cents-per-gal. gas tax the Senate has proposed: it's too little. The House and Senate conferees, wrestling to reconcile their respective budget packages, should make one tiny little amendment. Where it says 4.3 cents, they should add two words: a year. And maybe a third word: forever. For decades, we'd still be paying vastly less for gas than our competitors (in Europe...
With the average price of unleaded, self-service gas running around $1.15 per gal. this summer, a bit less than last year (that's right, less), a 4.3 cents hike in the gas tax would add about 3% to the price. All you'd have to do to keep your cost of driving level would be to improve your gasoline efficiency 3% a year to keep pace. Buy a car that gets 23 miles to the gallon, say, instead of 20, and you've beaten the gas tax for five years. Uncle Sam raises his lousy $70 billion over those...
Actually, Ross Perot, Paul Tsongas and Lee Iacocca -- men of considerable popularity -- have proposed even stiffer medicine. Presumably, the millions of Americans who consider themselves Perot-lees favor his 50 cents per gal. phased in over five years. But 4.3 cents a year forever wouldn't be half bad either...