gas tax plan???gas TAX plan??gas tax PLAN???oh, come on now..what needs to be done is get rid of all those fat cat executive types who are running the oil CARTELS who literally control our lives..or, maybe, just maybe, we really ARE running out of oil..

Just posted this in another section, but it really belongs here. The gas tax “holiday” is a ruse. First McCain, now Clinton, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I was intrigued by the idea until I went on-line and read some of the economists’ commentaries and realized that we are being had by this illogical- and, in the long run, costly- come-on. There’s a good, understandable discussion on http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/17/burman_comment…. Basically, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Our president squandered the opportunity to have Americans cut back on gasoline and oil consumption after 9/11. Americans wanted to take action and would have done anything at that time, even oh my, that word, sacrifice. Relief from gas taxes is not a good idea. We should boycott gasoline buying for one day. Who’s with me to organize a call to all Americans to boycott buying gasoline nationwide on some Friday in America? But seriously, OPEC has the capacity to produce more oil, they just aren’t. It is okay for our sons and daughters to spill their blood and youth to police their part of the wordl. They repay us by producing oil at a rate well below the rate they produced oil at a year ago. We need to use less gasoline, and if every American cut back on using gasoline by 10-15%, you’d see production go up and prices go down. Lucille O’Connor

We’ve just had the only gas tax holiday which is assured of providing households with direct relief…the tax rebate check. Anything else is counterproductive.

Its a bad idea. The money saved per person is minimal, yet would cost the highway trust fund millions (maybe billions??). I heard this might mean many highway construction jobs would be lost for the summer. And there’s no guarantee that if the tax were lifted, the oil companies wouldn’t find a way to raise prices even more. What is needed is both a comprehensive conservation and alternative energy plan, as well as somehow curtailing the percent profit oil companies can make, which seems limitless now.

who here remembers the gas lines in 1973? that was a fake shortage brought about by politics (opec). we are now confronted by a new reality that you can call peak oil. (seriously, google “peak oil”) it is the concept that we have already used up at least half of the world’s oil resources—the easily accessed half. for both political and practical reasons, we need to convert closed manufacturing facilities to produce wind turbines and solar panels, and contractors need to learn how to place them for maximum effect (contractors = people working). one characteristic of peak oil is an inflexible supply, thereby boosting the price enormously whenever demand goes up a little. demand is rising in india and china. in the past, saudi arabia has pumped just enough oil to keep us from developing alternatives. the gas tax can maintain a high enough price to support the development of alternatives. had the supposedly sainted ronald reagan not undone all of jimmy carter’s efforts to develop alternatives, we would be off our oil addiction now.