So I went to a Speedway the other day (I normally go to BP) and saw a sticker on the pump that said how much tax is on the price of gas. It said 44.8 cents ($0.448). Wow. That's per gallon. So I looked up online how much gas tax really is. Here's what I found:

• The federal gas tax is 18.4 CPG (cents per gallon).
• The Wisconsin gas tax is 32.1 CGP - the highest of all 50 states.

So that Wisconsin money (and some Federal) goes toward fixing our roads, right? Didn't I hear something recently about that fund being raided by the governor to help bail out schools? It's not wonder it's that high! What were they thinking that the roads are doing just great after a record snow season with all the plowing? My car registration fee went up like $20 this year, too.

If the national gax tax was put on holiday, gas would go down from $3.559 (today) to like $3.375 (which would of course be $3.38). On 15 gallons, you save $2.55 ((3.55 - 3.38) * 15). Wow, big deal. You can easily clip $20 in grocery coupons from the Sunday paper.

If the national gax tax and just half of the state tax would go on holiday, then (skipping the math) you'd save like $4.95 on every 15 gallons. That's a little more like it. That starts to add up. It's the Wisconsin state tax that's out of control.

I say lower the state tax for good, don't raid that fund anymore and put up toll booths at the IL border and every WI taxpayer gets a electronic pass bringing that down to a minimal fee.

Gasoline is a commodity. No, President Bush isn't raising the price - sorry, go take Economics 101. Countries like China and India (lots of people there, trust me) are using more gas. The higher the demand, the higher the price. We have it pretty good compared to some European countries. Did you know we get most of our gas from Canada and Mexico.

If we think cutting down on gas use will lower the price, it really won't unless all the other countries did the same thing. No likely. Lowering our use will lower how much we pay.

Ethanol isn't the answer either. Ok, let's burn our food. What a stupid idea. What's happening to the price of food? It's way up. And it takes 1.6 gallons of regular fuel to make 1 gallon of ethanol. So it's a lose-lose situation.

So I don't really have any solutions here, I just thought I'd get on my soap box a little. I don't like that Wisconsin is a state with super high taxes. Most of that seems to be government overhead. It's crazy.

Also I heard that Obama thinks that gas companies would raise the price of gas to offset the gas tax. Huh? The gas tax doesn't go to gas companies, it goes to the government. And this guy's running for President? He doesn't even get the simplest things. I'd hate to see the economy in his hands.

-T

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