When John McCain and then-candidate Hillary Clinton proposed a holiday on the federal gas tax, most observers laughed their proposal up into the fodder of Presidential politics. A temporary repeal would only serve a small temporary relief while the price of oil could easily eat the benefit by trading up a few more dollars on Wall Street. Now the effort for a temporary repeal has met it's demise in Congress, but that isn't all.
From RawStory:
WASHINGTON -- The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere.Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded - with a prod from the construction industry - that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs.
Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel.
With gas prices setting records daily, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and former Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a 90-day suspension of the federal fuel tax to give drivers a little relief at the pump. The fuel taxes go into the Highway Trust Fund, which is used for road construction and repair and mass transit.
When McCain and Clinton made the proposition, they forgot about where that tax money goes. Since much of our general fund seems to be going to the military-industrial complex, a tax on gasoline goes right back to helping Americans get around, whether it be by road or rail. Ideally the money should come via the main budget and focused on mass transit, but we can not allow our roads to fall apart in the manner that they are currently.
