Gasoline Tax Holiday Fails To Rev Readers' Engines

Published: May 10, 2008

A Temporary Bromide

All three U.S. senators running for the presidential nominations of their parties pledge to not have "business as usual" if they are elected. However, both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have proposed the suspension of the federal gasoline tax sometime through the summer of 2008.

The maintenance of roads and bridges and whatever else those taxes cover does not take a holiday. If these monies were not needed, they should not have been in a budget. This type of pandering to the public for political benefit, rather than for what's best for the national economy, is what has characterized the do-nothing Congress of the past eight years, and maybe longer.

Giving credit where credit is due: Barack Obama rejects this temporary bromide because it would harm the long-time health of our national infrastructure by undermining its funding. In addition, it would send the wrong message about the dire need for an energy policy that will benefit our country and prepare it for the future.

In setting the right priorities, Obama's most dangerous action may have been to be too forthcoming. He did not look for a popular answer. He was looking for the best answer.

The problem with the "business as usual" crowd is that they employ short-term fixes to ingratiate themselves with voters and let the responsibility for the solution of these problems to go unattended.

SUZANNE MacTOUGH

Sun City Center

Pandering For Votes

Americans are hopeful people, even in times when hope seems illusory. Politicians use this against us. Take, for instance, the "gas tax holiday."

In what fairyland will shaving 18 cents a gallon in taxes off the gallon price really translate into even one cent at the pumps and make our future brighter? Jobs and homes are lost; oil company profits and gas prices are up. No worries! Take the McCain/Clinton/Bush prescription for today's ills; a stimulus check and your gas taxes for three months, then stop whining and elect another do-nothing president.

And Clinton insists that those who disagree with her are simply elitists. What is truly elitist and pandering is to believe that throwing a few pennies at the common folk will make them vote for you.

Please think before you vote. We need solutions, not Band-Aids!

JACK DARKES

Temple Terrace

Backroom Manipulations

When President Bush took office, the price of oil was $32 a barrel; it hit $122 a barrel last week.

On January 29, 2001, Bush told reporters they were witnessing an important event. A new task force would be established to draw up a new national energy policy. The task force would be led by Vice President Dick Cheney. The American public has not been told the names of the task force members or what they talked about and many questions go unanswered.

It has been said the Enron Corporation played a role in the 2000-01 California blackout by manipulating the electricity market. What role did they play on this task force? We know that billions of dollars in new tax breaks, reduced fees for drilling on public lands, relaxed environmental regulations and other incentives to big oil have resulted in the current oil prices. It is a cost we must all endure.

Litigation that has reached the Supreme Court over whether the White House could keep the task force records secret from Congress and the American people has so far succeeded. It has been said that the power to control information is both a shield and a sword. This shield and sword are held in the hand of the imperial President Bush.

On Jan. 13, 1898, in French newspaper L'Aurore, there was printed an open letter to then President Felix Faure by a citizen of France, Emile Zola. This famous letter was called J'accuse ("I accuse"). Where is our Zola; where is our L'Aurore and when will information again be free?

GERALD A. CERVENY

Tampa