Repeal the Gore gas tax

A Test of Whether GOP Is Addicted to Pork

In the wake of $1.59 gas prices, Republicans need to remind American motorists early and often of the utter failure of the energy policies of the Clinton-Gore White House. Part of that failure was in raising the gas tax back in 1993.

Sen. Larry Craig (R.-Idaho), one of the few unflinching taxpayer advocates left on Capitol Hill these days, says he wants to gang the gas tax issue around Al Gore's neck." That makes eminent sense. Particularly when the Vice President seems so accommodating in sticking his head out.

Gore sounded mealy-mouthed and defensive when he attacked Craig's tax-cut plan. Taxes aren't the problem, Gore said reflexively and unconvincingly. That is, of course, a preposterous argument, given that approximately 40% of the cost you and I pay at the pump is taxes.

Washington's Voracious Appetite

The problem is not just OPEC. It is Washington's voracious appetite for tax revenues. Republicans should hold a vote immediately in the House and Senate on repealing the Gore gas tax.

The vote hasn't happened. It now looks like it's not going to happen. Why? What explains this act of monumental political idiocy? Can the ball be teed up any more enticingly? The answer is that Republicans have been frightened off. In their first big showdown with Al Gore, they blinked first.

Gore has a new best friend in Congress. His name is Bud Shuster. This Republican congressman from Pennsylvania is the Transportation Committee czar in Washington. He passes out billions of dollars of road pork every year.

Mr. Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the economic of fairs correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS. Mess with Bud and you may have your bicycle path or parking garage money slashed.

It turns out that Bud believes exactly what Al Gore believes. "The suggestion to reduce the gas tax is a feelgood proposal that would not solve the problem," he told his colleagues. Hmm, sounds exactly like the Vice President. It was almost plagiarism.

And like lambs the rest of the Republicans followed Bud over the political cliff. In fact, the next thing you knew House Speaker-Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.) was dutifully echoing the Gore-Shuster spin: The gas tax cut would provide "scant relief." Hey, scant relief is better than no relief.

The preemptive surrender makes one fight back nausea. It didn't help matters much that also ferociously opposed to repealing the Clinton-Gore gas-tax hike were two powerful special interest groups that have their snouts firmly entrenched in -the federal trough: the Associated General Contractors and the American Road Transportation Builders. A party truly dedicated to smaller and smarter government should be opposed to everything that these corporate welfare queens are for. If these pressure groups had their way, the gas tax would be raised, not lowered.

So now the congressional Republicans are refusing to repeal a tax that not one of them actually voted for when Bill Clinton proposed it in 1993. Back in 1993 they mercilessly savaged their Democratic colleagues for this tax-- hike on the backs of working-class Americans.

Well, they may not have voted for it seven years ago, but today they are as eager, if not more so, than the Democrats to spend the extra $5 to $7 billion a year that the Gore-Shuster tax brings in for highway pork. This is oldfashioned tax-spend-elect politics. On this issue the Republicans are now more reprehensible than the Democrats: They're both big spenders, but the Republicans are tax hypocrites as well.

This year gas prices may rise to as high as $2.00 a gallon. That's a regressive tax, folks, on motorists. It will cost American households tens of billions of dollars extra on their Mobil and Chevron credit card bills.

Republicans now presumably want to leave our energy policy in the capable hands of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. How reassuring.

We should be repealing the entire federal gas tax to counteract this price inflation. We should be repealing the Energy Department. Get Washington, Al Gore, Bill Richardson and especially Bud Shuster out of the business of setting energy policy and building roads.

GOP Surrender

The political ramifications of the GOP surrender on the Gore tax are huge. Give Al Gore the first knock-out punch in the presidential sweepstakes. He has flattened the congressional Republicans, who are down on their backs for the eight-count. This doesn't bode well under a President Gore scenario.

We also now know who runs Congress. It isn't Denny Hastert. It isn't Dick Armey. It isn't Trent Lott. Ladies and Gentlemen, the acting Speaker of the House is Bud Shuster, arguably the biggest spender in the history of the party.

Where is George W.? Bush now has a spectacular political opportunity to look and act presidential. He can demonstate that he has the gravitas to manhandle not just Gore, but Congress-seven the spendaholics in his own party.

He must announce that under a Bush Administration the tax would be cut lickity split-irrespective of what Speaker Shuster has to say. Bush should also denounce congressional timidity on tax cuts, especially when the cowards are Republicans.