gas tax vacation
They’re talking about suspending the gas tax for the summer like it is actually going to fix something. And that’s actually become a readily identifiable difference between Obama and Clinton. Clinton thinks the gas tax vacation thing is a good idea, Obama doesn’t. And now Clinton is using that in her campaign – Obama doesn’t want you to keep your money, he wants you to give it to the government, isn’t that just horrible?
The problem with this whole gas tax vacation thing, much like the recent economic stimulus thing, is that it’s just a show to keep people happy without actually doing anything to correct the problem.
The problem right now isn’t actually with the gas tax, or even really with the cost of gasoline. The problem is that the economy is going to hell. If the economy was doing well wages could increase to meet rising costs and we wouldn’t be having a problem. The reason it hurts so much to pay for gasoline right now is because wages are not increasing.
Additionally, the rising cost of gasoline also trickles into just about everything you buy. More expensive gas means that it costs more to haul things around the nation – which makes everything more expensive. Not by a whole lot on any one item, but everything costs a few cents extra. And, again, wages have not been increasing – so people are having a hard time paying for things.
So the solution, apparently, is to get rid of the gas tax for the summer months. Apparently saving a little bit of money on your gasoline for a few months will somehow turn the economy around.
Just to put things in perspective…
The price of gas around here is about $3.85 a gallon depending on where you buy it, what grade you get, the day of the week, etc. The gas taxes in New York, according to this website, are about $0.32 a gallon. As you can see, gas tax is not a huge part of the cost of gasoline.
If we were to suspend the gas tax for a few months I would save, on average, $3.50 or so each time I filled my car. And since I fill roughly twice a week, that’s saving me about $28 a month. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less… And that’s assuming the price of gas doesn’t change much (ha!).
An extra $28 a month really is not going to change my life. It really doesn’t matter what I spend it on, or how I save it… That just is not a huge amount of money. Especially when you consider that they’re just planning on suspending the gas tax for a few months. We’re looking at a total savings of $150 or so by the end of summer. That’s it.
Now, I’m not going to say $150 is a negligible amount… There are certainly useful things I can do with an extra $150… But it isn’t going to change my life. And considering that everything else is still more expensive, and my wages still aren’t going to increase, and our economy is still in the crapper… That $150 isn’t even a drop in the bucket. I won’t even actually see it because I’ll be busy paying for everything else.
Of course…if the government keeps that $28 per month…multiplied by everyone who is driving this summer…that is very literally millions of dollars that the government can spend to repair and build roads. Of course, I don’t know how that tax money is spent… Maybe the senate just has a big ol’ pizza party at the end of every week… But, in theory, that money can be much better spent by the government than it can by me.
And this is all somehow based on the assumption that gas prices are going to stay relatively static, which they won’t. The price of gas has been steadily rising for years and it isn’t going to stop any time soon. We’ll be paying $4.00 a gallon by the end of summer regardless of whether we’ve got a gas tax or not.