Source:"Senate to hold gas prices hearing - The Senate Energy Committee will hold a hearing next month to determine reasons for U.S. gasoline prices, the panel said Friday.....Lawmakers admit there is no short-term fix to pain at the pump, but are nervous about political fall-out."
Actually there is a short term fix. Remove the federal gasoline tax. "The U.S. federal gasoline tax as of 2005 was 18.4 cents per U.S. gallon (4.86 ¢/L), and the gasoline taxes in the various states range from 10 cents to 33 cents, averaging about 22 cents per U.S. gallon (5.8 /L)."
According to my numbers it would save the US tax payers about 25,576,000,000 per year at the pump. Though the roads would not be funded, at the rate that gasoline is rising, they will not have to be, because no one will be driving on them.
BTW - that savings is real.
The CNN article mentions what a l cent rise in gas costs, I just took that number and multiplied it by 18.4, actually I just typed it into my windows calculator and it did the number crunching.
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3 comments:
Hah! LOL
Or they can start looking at why Exxon has posted record profits the last three years. OPEC has increased production, yet oil prices have not fallen. A lot of people think it is a problem on our side with American companies inflating the price of petroleum products to make more money.
That is possible, though I could also be goverment regulations that make entry into the oil market hard, thereby reducing compeition.
It could also be goverment regulations making it had to open new refineries in the US.
It could also be goverment regulations that tie the hands of refineies and pervent them from selling their gas anywhere in the US, allowing them to lock down certian markets.
It could also be the fact that the gasoline compaines have a huge liablity of lawsuits coming down the pike for the use of an oxygenate called MTBE, which can cause water contamation, and whose use was mandated by the US goverment.
You could break up the oil compaines, if they are monoplies, but if you do not change the regulatory landscape, the price of gas will not change.
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