(Note: I included the reader comments updated as of today)

Gas tax holiday: OK for nation, not NH (Tuesday, May 6, 2008)

A FEDERAL gas tax holiday might provide limited short-term relief from high gas prices. It would not work at the state level, however.

Not collecting the federal gas tax for the summer, as Sen. John McCain has proposed, would slightly lower gas prices -- if it did not stimulate enough demand to drive prices right back up.

The U.S. Highway Trust Fund has become a pork-barrel slush fund, and a gas tax holiday might actually prompt Congress to be somewhat more frugal with the money it has left in the account.

The state highway trust fund also is raided for political purposes, but it cannot afford to be. Eliminating the state gas tax for the summer could significantly harm needed state road projects.

Any benefit from a gas tax holiday would be small and temporary, of course. Congress should take steps, such as ending the ethanol mandate and approving more oil exploration, to cut costs in the long term by increasing supply.

YOUR COMMENTS

The voices of UnionLeader.com readers: To join UnionLeader.com's discussion of the news, use the form below.

NOTE: If you have read this article before, you may not be seeing the newest comments. Press F5. Or click "Refresh" or "Reload" at the top of this page while holding down Ctrl. All approved postings will appear.

Instead of demanding that OPEC produce more oil, how about we demand that the oil companies stop the profiteering. Record profits don't happen without record margins.

- Jeff, Manchester

Until we increase the amount of crude oil avail here in the US the price of oil is going to remain sky high.

Call/Write your congressman and demand that they lift the restrictions on domestic drilling offshore and in other areas.

Its hypocritical of people like Sen Schumer to demand that OPEC produce more oil for us when we're unwilling to utilize the resources that are in our own back yards.

If China and Cuba are drilling off the Florida Coast why can't WE?

- JP, Warner

If you agree with suspending the gas tax go to www.cutthegastax.com and sign a petition to federal and state legislators!

- Mike, Concord, NH

This article does have some merit to it but I do believe that, for the immediate short term we do need this holiday to lower gas prices. I do feel that this will be a wasted effort if Congress doesn’t take more drastic measures to relieve the short term and long term issues with Supply and Demand.

I am interested in where Jeff in Manchester got his facts. The Federal Government makes 2 ½ times more profit per gallon of oil sold than the oil companies make. Plus the oil companies invest BILLIONS of dollars into research for new forms of energy while our Government only provides subsidies for failed forms of energy (see ethanol).

We only need to have Government spending controlled to pay for this holiday.

... but we don't know anything about Government Overspending, do we...