³Uncle Sam is a greedy price gouger, and every American driver is one of his victims,² says Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for president. ³Ending the federal fuel tax would save consumers billions of dollars and stimulate the economy in the process.²
As oil prices rocketed to a record $45 a barrel this week, and many experts predicted that prices at the pump would soon follow suit, analysts pointed to several causes for the crisis, including tight world supplies, political crises in Iraq, Venezuela, and Russia, and even impending hurricanes.
But one overlooked culprit in the debate over higher gas prices, Badnarik says, is politicians.
³Congressional Republicans and Democrats have socked the American people with an 18.4 cent-per-gallon tax on fuel,² he says. ³Since neither President George Bush nor Senator John Kerry has opposed this tax, they¹re accomplices in this highway robbery.²
Want to reduce gas prices even further? Then abolish state fuel taxes, which average 24 cents a gallon, Badnarik noted.
³Ending state and federal gas taxes would slash prices by a whopping 42 cents, which would reduce the cost of fuel to about $1.50 a gallon,² he said. ³According to the American Petroleum Institute, Americans pay a total of $72 billion a year in fuel taxes, which works out to $385 for every licensed driver and $660 for every family.²
Badnarik urged Bush and Kerry to follow the example of the Florida legislature, which just passed a bill cutting the state gas tax by 8 cents for the month of August.
³This measure is expected to save Floridians nearly $60 million in one month,² he said. ³If politicians in one state can end this tax for a month, there¹s no reason that politicians in Congress and every state can¹t eliminate it permanently.
³We may not be able to do much about market forces. But we can do something about the political forces that are picking our pockets at the pump. Let¹s start by turning off the spigot and stop fuel tax money from flowing into Washington, DC.²
Design copyright Scars Publications and Design. Copyright of individual pieces remain with the author. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.
Problems with this page? Then deal with it...
