Alternate Route

May 5, 2008 - Escape From Reality

Prices at the pump have been rising. It's a Presidential election year. So you'd expect to hear the candidates position on an energy policy, right? Not so much.

Pandering for votes is the order of the day anymore with a couple of bad proposals making the rounds.

The gas tax holiday, suspending the 18.4 cent federal gas tax for 3 months over the summer driving season, is supposed to provide relief at the pump and save me money?  My Versa gets me about 33 MPG on average during the summer, and I drive it about 1,100 miles per month. Do the math. That's a "savings" of $6.13 per month.

Then there's the idea of a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. That's real smart too. Take the profits from an industry that operates on about an 8% profit margin and reduce their incentive to invest in exploration and production. Seems like that might reduce supplies and result in higher prices.  Google reported a profit margin of 25% in their latest quarterly results. I guess we should be after them too, right?

As long as it's "throw stupid ideas out to see how many voters believe them" season, Dub Schwartz may as well throw his hat in the ring. We could do worse.

3:45 am | Categories: commentary, gas prices, humor Permalink | Alert Administrator

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