Why Gas Tax Pandering Policies - - Even The Rhetoric - - Won't Catch On Here

Wisconsin's gas tax is 32.9 cents a gallon, a bigger bite each gallon than the 18.4 cents the Feds take and which Candidates McCain and Clinton are dangling in front of we beleaguered motorists as this summer's financial salvation.

So you'd think that pandering state politicians would jump onto the low-wattage bandwagon and suggest that we get the whole half-buck back in Badger land this summer, right?

I mean - - 50+ cents a gallon: more than $15 bucks back every time you fill up that 37-gallon tank on your popular Ford 150, right?

Don't bet on it. Those gas taxes are the bread-and-butter of the state's most powerful lobby - - the road-builders, and their allies in both parties, in both wings of the State Capitol, and there is no way that the already over-committed highway budget is going to take a self-inflicted hit this close to an election.

There isn't going to be a gas tax collection holiday this summer, at either the state and federal level.

There is a way we can save ourselves a few dollars each tank full: drive less and drive slower.

The airlines are slowing down their planes a few miles per hour and they are burning appreciably less fuel.

Changes in practices go farther than gimmicks, and these changes will become more than routine when gasoline crosses the $4 barrier and the price keeps on rising.