Want proof that we, the people, in this country are truly not bright?
You can buy gasoline today in Indiana just across the border from Chicago for $2.07 a gallon. In Chicago it’s $2.31 a gallon. The city of Chicago and Cook County add 11 cents a gallon in taxes to state and Federal taxes making the total 80.2 cents a gallon.
The city of Chicago is broke. Mayor Emanuel, the outgoing mayor, proposes to add 30 cents a gallon to Chicago taxes (indexed to inflation) and the new governor wants to tack on some more in state taxes. Gas prices in San Francisco today are $3.50. If this happens Chicago prices will top that.
Gas prices go down and politicians add taxes. Gas prices go up too high and politicians, and their lap dog media, blame the oil companies. The very oil companies that made the prices go down with their franking technology that they use to drill on private lands, since the government severely limits drilling on public lands. Your lands, not theirs. States like New York and Illinois and California don’t allow fracking. The United States is now oil independent for the first time in 50 years and that is forcing the crude prices down. The billions Obama blew with his energy czar, Dr. Chu, on the likes of Solyndra ( $535 million loan guarantee) and his other follies that add up to 40 projects totaling $36 billion that did nothing to produce a barrel of anything.
Illinois is broke because the state pays thousands of public employees, who retire at age 57(average) with pensions averaging $100K a year inflating at 3% and totaling over $1 million each during their lifetime. The average each paid into those pensions was $160,00. Pensioners who live in Florida with low gas prices and no income tax. The city of Chicago is broke for the same reasons.
The solution is to tax gasoline, twice, once at the city and again at state levels. Why, because with low gas prices now is the time.
Rest assured when the gas prices go back to $5 a gallon, and the public is revolting like they are in France, the politicians and the media will blame the evil oil companies.
The sad thing is you will buy it. When you do because you forgot who tacked on another dollar in taxes when prices were low, you qualify as not too bright.
You smug folks who drive electric cars are not exempt. They politicians are finding ways to tack on taxes at recharging stations. And, J.B. Pritzker, the newly elected governor in Illinois wants to tax by miles driven. Putting a device on you car to do just that.
Who is hurt most by all of this? Not the elites like Pritzker and Emanuel who did it, but the working poor the Democrats profess to represent. Those who commute to work by car.
Once, again, not too bright.
