08.05.06
What Can Congress Do About High Gas Prices?
Congressman Ron Paul asks What Can Congress Do About High Gas Prices? in his latest column.
The only guaranteed lever they have is their power to change the amount of taxation:
And in the meantime let’s eliminate federal gas taxes at the pump.
We have one of the silliest systems in the world where politicians (excluding the honorable Ron Paul, of course) complain about the high price of gasoline but conveniently forget that they collect more in tax revenue on gasoline than oil companies profit.
That’s right, the US Government and state governments make more profit from your pain at the pump than those “evil oil companies” that do the work of pumping, refining, and delivering the gasoline to you.
I don’t know about you, but I like and need to use gasoline. Shouldn’t my hard-earned money go to the people actually providing me a service rather than the politicians who squander it with bridges to nowhere? Even if the oil companies are getting oversized profits, at least they worked for it. In contrast, politicians take money they didn’t earn, for services they haven’t performed, and spend it on things that I never asked for.
This comes back to my old force versus persuasion argument. Oil companies have to persuade me to buy their goods. Governments do not, they force me to pay taxes. Guess which one I prefer, and even which one I have a free choice with?