Should You Pay $6 Per Gallon?

Why higher gas prices make economic sense.

With gas prices constantly hitting new records, John McCain struck a populist chord last week with his proposal for a gas tax holiday. After all, with pump prices for regular now averaging $3.57 a gallon, who wouldn’t like to lop off the 18.4-cent federal tax on each gallon you pump into your car this summer? It seemed like such a good idea Hillary Clinton jumped on the gas tax holiday bandwagon too. Only Barack Obama said he didn’t like the idea because it takes funds from federal roadwork. However, Obama did vote for a similar gas tax holiday as an Illinois state senator in 2000.

But America’s top car dealer says what we really need in this country is high gas prices


The fact is, as much as we gripe about gas prices, we’re pumping just as much of the precious liquid into our tanks as ever. Every day in America we burn through 391 million gallons of motor fuel. That burn rate is the same as last year, when gas prices were 70 cents per gallon lower. And gas consumption is up 18 percent from a decade ago. The federal Energy Information Administration just predicted we would finally begin to curb our consumption this year for the first time since 1991