Gas Prices Soar, Democrats Say Cut Taxes!

On the Federal level and the State level...(yeah, sure, Hawaii...but anyway....)

That's right! Democrats...not Republicans...are working to suspend taxes on gasoline to help alleviate the burdens of soaring gas prices. Regarding the federal measure:

The measure, proposed by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), would reduce the cost of gas by $0.184 per gallon and the cost of diesel by $0.244 per gallon. The move, aides say, will provide $100 million dollars per day in relief.

Conservatives? What say you? Why isn't this kind of proposal coming from your "lesser of two evils" party? Let me see you try and argue your way out this one....

Now, I'll grant, the proposal isn't all rose petals. There are a few thorns, like:

Democrats say the money will be made up by cutting six billion dollars in tax breaks to oil firms. Currently, the money from the federal gas tax goes to the Highway Trust fund.

and...

Democrats are also working on an amendment that would give federal authorities more power to investigate price gouging, aides say. The measure could be introduced by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who is examining the idea.

But still...we should give credit where credit is due.

In the end, is this proposal going to be effective? Probably not. But I think the major significance of this is that its shows Democrats are beginning to think about these problems in the right way. When there's a problem, let's cut taxes, and remove government obstacles to the free market. The "cutting spending" part hasn't quite sunk in, I see...or at least not what really constitutes spending...as to Senator Menendez, tax loop holes are equivalent of "expenditures". But I give him an A for effort, even if the bottom line is not an overall reduction in taxes, but rather a shifting of the tax burden from one group (consumers) to another (producers).