[Clemenza]

If I see one more person complain about "high oil prices" when they drive an SUV or commute more than 15 miles to work, I'm going to go postal on their a-s.

Get a smaller car, get a smaller house closer to work.

[Paul C. Jesup]

I was wondering when someone was going to bring this up.

[AlexW]

Americans that complain about the cost of gas would get a real dose if they came to Europe.
Gas here is an average of $6.00 per gallon, and in the UK, can run up to $8.00. Most of the cost is in taxes.

It is the reason that most people have small cars, and do not drive great distances, as in the US.

[Toby06]

IF gas taxes were used strictly for infrastructure maintenance and improvement, I would have no problem with it. It works out like a user fee and is probably the best way to apportion the cost of road maintenance.
If it were paid for from general funds, the burden would not be placed fairly, wherein drivers of smaller more efficient vehicles would pay as much as operators of over the road haulers.

[ketelone]

Theres little outrage because the money is taken away in small parcels.

"How many people do you know who can afford to lose nearly $400 annually without it affecting their budgets? "

That comes to about 34$ a month. I can see A LOT of people not even noticing it.

[John W]

While I don't disagree, how much of what we are paying now versus a year ago is taxes?We know when our elected reps increase the tax and that has not been a part of the increase over the past year.More sales tax, yes, since it is a percentage of the per gallon cost, but, other than that where I live the last year of increases is going somewhere else.

[TXBSAFH]

Both oil and government are gouging the consumers.

[MediaAnalyst]

The people in the MSM, Libertarians, and others who bitch about high gas taxes are the first ones to support tolling and privatization of our highways and roads.

Right now, even at 50 cents/gallon, I pay a grand total of 2 cents per mile (above the market price of the gas itself) to drive my 25 MPG car. I can afford that.

In London it now costs $14 per day just to enter the city center. San Francisco and New York are looking at similar plans. We have a toll road in California that cost nearly $1.00 per mile (that's MILE, not gallon) during peak hours. We have new publicly-built toll roads around the nation that cost on the order of 20 cents per mile. We have privately operate roads in North America (including US) pushing 30 cents per mile (foreign-operated, I may add). We have the state governments of California, Texas, and many others looking for ways to use GPS to track and toll drivers for every inch that they drive (with a pilot program in Oregon already running). We have state after state looking to sell off their highways (for conversion to private tolling) for a short infusion of money (i.e., heroin fix).

This is what I face as the alternative to my 2 cents per mile.

As mentioned earlier, the fight should be to stop the DIVERSION of money away from roads and highways, not to give the government huge new ways to tax and track us.

Roads are expensive. We will get roads. But do we really want some way other than the gas tax to pay for them?

[Rakkasan1]

you mean taxation is used for behavior modification, not raising revenue??? I'm shocked.

[kaktuskid]

Add to that gov't enforced requirements for "cleaner fuels"...taking out the small amount of sulfur; putting in then being forced to take out MTBE; ethanol; etc.

[38special]

Driving an economy car versus an SUV the tradeoff is economy versus safety. You are more likely to be killed or severely injured in an accident driving a small car than in a large car.

[pollyannaish]

FINALLY!

High gas prices keep getting blamed on President Bush in this state.

Truth is, our *cough* esteemed *cough governor used the opportunity to raise gas prices over the objection of the public and is sitting on a surplus.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Of course, we're supposed to be calmed by the rationale that all this money being extracted from us is used for the upkeep and expansion of our transportation infrastructure -- building new roads and maintaining existing ones. But our roads are in disrepair and increasingly over-crowded. Our money doesn't seem to be going very far. (Or perhaps it is merely going into the pockets of well-connected no-bid contractors?) At least part of that $50 billion extraction is diverted into "safety" programs -- whatever that means.

Not to mention, some state transportation funds get raided by greedy legislatures looking to spend the money elsewhere...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The 35 to 50 cents Mr. Peters gives for state gas taxes sounds a little high, judging by some of the examples I've read about (17.5 cents for VA, 23.5 for MD, 29.9 for NC, 20.0 for TX), although I hear it's now 46 cents in NY, IIRC. I wonder where he gets his figure from?