Gas Tax

What with it being Christmas break I’m finally able to hit the blogs again. A lot’s been happening lately and one of those things is the drop in gas prices. Currently the days of $4.00 a gallon are gone, and hello $1.50 average, give or take a few pennies. Who wouldn’t look at this as a good thing? Oh but wait, there was that whole “Alternative Energy” thing, yeah well it would seem Americans are like yeah you do that but just leave us for right now with our $1.50 a gallon.

On the December 7th edition of Meet the Press, interim moderator Tom Brokaw had this to say to exclusive guest President-elect Barack Obama:

MR. BROKAW: Let's talk for a moment about consumer responsibility when it comes to the auto industry. As soon as gas prices began to drop, consumers moved back to the larger cars once again, to SUVs and the big gas consumers.

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: Why not take this opportunity to put a tax on gasoline, bump it back up to $4 a gallon where people were prepared to pay for that, and use that revenue for alternative energy and as a signal to the consumers those days are gone.

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Well...

MR. BROKAW: We're not going to have gasoline that you can just fill up your tank for 20 bucks anymore.

Now I like Tom Brokaw but Tom come on! Americans don’t want to pay $4+ for gas, especially when it’s foreign. So thank goodness when Obama responded saying, “...keep in mind what's happening in--to families all across America. Yes, gas prices have gone down. But, in the meantime, maybe somebody in the family's lost their job. In the meantime, their housing values have plummeted. In the meantime, maybe their hours have been cut back. Or if they're a small-business owner, their sales have gone down 50, 60, 70 percent. So putting additional burdens on American families right now, I think, is a mistake.”

Duh.

Tom you were supposed to be asking the hard questions not coming up with an idea for Alternative Energy fund-raising. Alternative Energy is important but it will be years if not decades before the whole country has been redone to function on such a system. I believe Americans want to help but not if it means hurting their back pockets with a gas tax.