remember when gas was ~$2 a gallon? $0.18 is a 9% tax. If it was kept at 9%, the gas tax would be $0.36 a gallon. For better roads, why not?

That's the best solution! Let's tax the citizen's more! How about to really help the economy revive they temporarily reduce all taxes (both state and federal) on gas? That means gas would cost about a couple bucks cheaper at least, depending where you live. Then take some of the money that "we the people" provide the new presidential candidates for their campaigns ($300 million or so?), and give that to the Department of Transportation.

The point is to stop wasting money on those bad government program gimmes and put the money to work in the economy. Otherwise it's just monopoly money and doesn't benefit any of us.

Ummmm ya oh well.
I say jack up the price of gas to $10 a gal and then watch how fast we see cars get 200 MPG or something to run cars on besides gas.

Your most expensive places are almost as much as Canada's cheapest gas.

We pay like $6.00/gallon

These companies are raking it in with record profits. Everyone knows it. They are price fixing and making sure costs never go down because nobody outside the industry has any power over their pricing. The government needs to step in and force them to bring their prices back to a tolerable level. If the government does that, people will drive more, buy more gas, and pay more gas taxes to the government. The Oil CEOs however, may be forced to buy only one yacht a month instead of two.

... people in Africa, still walking!

...mortality rates in Africa has skyrocketed.

While the oil companies *are* raking in record profits, the main cause for the high price of oil is speculation in the Commodity Futures market. In the year 2000, US Congress passed a bill called the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act"(and Bill Clinton signed it into law). The net effect of this legislation was mostly to deregulate the commodity futures market. There used to be a regulation that stated that if you traded in commodity futures, then you had to actually take delivery of the commodity that you were buying in the contract. What this meant was that if you bought a contract to buy 100,000 barrels of oil for $75/barrel in January of 1999, then you had to actually take delivery of 100,000 of oil in January of 1999. Now what happens is these contracts are just bought and sold, bought and sold, with no physical delivery actually taking place. Speculators who really have nothing to do with oil production are artificially rising the "demand" for oil by way of trading these contracts, and this is the reason the price is double what it should be. De-regulation of the commodity futures market is the reason why oil is the price that it is. It is also the same deregulation that allowed enron to artificially jack up the price of electricity and create an artificial scarcity, therefore bilking something like $40 billion from california taxpayers and causing rolling brownouts throughout the state.

.02

'sup@these americans moaning about $6?

the difference between england and america though is that we're a much bigger country and people decided to live in the suburbs and work in the cities. we have to drive to work. public transportation is not as big as in europe. so we feel these high price alot more than you guys do.

some guy said they show force them to lower the prices. these gas prices are good because they'll finally give car manufacturers more reason to build more efficent, smaller, and greener vehicles.

Simple as that, people that utilize the public roads the most should pay the most. It would be trivial to incorporate... The street lights could broadcast the rates of the current road your on, or any other number of similiar ideas. How about tax congested roads more? And more efficient traffic corridors less?

Haha. Now you wish it has happened 5 yrs ago.

Enjoy your SUV - Sleep in it.

How is taxing miles driven different compare to gas consumed?

The more miles you drive, the more fuel you use, thus the more tax you paid. Tax congested road more? You'll be stuck in the jam not moving but still your engine burns fuel, thus you pay more tax. It sounded the same to me.

I live in a place where the fuel is still subsidized by the government (currently roughly $3.1/gallon, recently up from $2.2/gallon). But we pay a lot for "roadtax", fixed rate annually depends on engine size, which resulted in most people stuck with small cars. An American v8, small block or something, would cost 200x more in roadtax than a normal 1.6 liter engine.

Relatively speaking, I graduated with a bachelor degree, my 1.6 liter would cost me 2 day worth of salary a year for roadtax, a 6 liter v8 would cost my annual salary. As a petrol head, how I envy the US' gas/roadtax system. How I wish I can own a muscle car that I would only drive 50 miles a month during weekend. But nooooo~ I can't have that luxury.

Sorry for the rant.

Jonas, my friend you think living in the suburbs is costing you more for fuel - how about changing your vehicle with something queto more fuel efficient,eh? What is a monster of 4.0 or 5.0 Liter Engine? What do you think the MPG would be? And how about a VW group based Diesel with 1.9 liter displacement that gives 45 MPG highway? Any idea? It is only beaten by the Prius and ONLY CITY - highay the Prius cannot reach this number!!!

Would a Hummer or a Lincoln Escalade or a Ford Crown Victoria give anything close? Like 25 at most? Cut the crap that you care more about fuel price - you care more about displacement and it need more fuel for doing the same job!!!

Get rid of the enormously big engine displacement and get a more fuel efficien engine/vehicle - then gas price would still hit you but times less!!! Times less!!!

We should be conserving far more than a scant 1%. To me this shows that most people are not conserving or commuting. If we commuted one day a week there we would be consuming 20% less. Obviously, people like to complain about the high cost of fuel but do almost nothing about it.

Now the government is complaining that we don't consume enough. What the hell?

We'll, who gives a S@#$ what the government thinks anyway? They must be paid off by the oil companies to make these kind of stamenents. This report is ridiculous.

So in that guys post you are able to Tell what kind of auto he drives? WOW tell me what kind i drive and what cc displacement of the engine also,

If people drive less, the roads will be damaged less. They will require less maintenance and less expansion. A more fuel efficient car tends to be a smaller, lighter car. Light cars do far less damage to the road then big trucks.

As to people driving less, the cost of gas does not bother me, however I drive less out of respect for people who can't afford fuel. If we all use less gas, the cost will go down.

I saw it coming though. Fuel prices up, total mileage down. Total mileage down, less tax collected. It's only logical.

Unfortunately all that can be done is that the money has to come from some other place. And the people can only hope that however the gov gets the money they will use it wisely.

These are tough times.

Well... I bet that dent doesn't affect the oil companies profits one little bit!

being in the oil business I have a unique perspective.
The tax on most diesel is around $.40(more in some states) a gallon where the profit most stations make is around $.10 a gallon or less. So my question to those who have a grasp of math is who is making all the money here?
We won't drill for new oil and won't let companies build new refineries what did you think would happen.....

Only thing more surprising... is apparently Canada has the Internet too?!?!?!?!?

Gas is expensive because our dollar is not worth crap now. Haven't you guys been reading anything?