A lot of people have been complaining about gas prices, and I have no problem with people doing that, as I do as well. But the problem is, is that the scapegoat for this problem is the wrong people. Many people have been putting the blame on "big oil", and they have been saying the oil companies are "price gouging" and "exploiting a gas crisis", and it has been called "coorporate corruption". Why don't we take a step back so we can see where the corruption really follows to.

If you take a look at the actual numbers for gas prices and where the money is going, you can clearly see that it is in fact the government who is making the money in this. For most of my research in this I used a website called gaspricewatch.com and because the gas tax differs for each state, I will use Maine. Not just because that's where I live, but because that's where it seems the most outragous.

The average price for gas in Maine right now is about $2.90 per gallon. Lets find out where that money is going. 25.2 cents per gallon goes to the state government, and 18.4 cents per gallon goes to the federal government which adds up to 43.6 cents per gallon in government taxes.

In the end, in most cases the government is making more money on gas than the oil companies. I don't believe there is any price gouging going on here with "big oil". The reason they're making profits is simply because the demand is high and the supply dipped after Katrina, but by no means were they price gouging. If you ask me, I think the government is tax gouging!

In the state of Maine, there are more taxes than tax-a-chussets. Sales tax, income tax, every tax you can think of is high in this state. But do they need all of this taxing? Certainly not. The state right under Maine, New Hampshire is very similar to Maine in many ways, yet they're taxes are very low. Obviously the state government is taking money they don't need, and spending it on things they don't need. So why do we need such a high gas tax here? Not only that, but why do some congressmen propose upping the gas tax because they think big oil is making too much? Obviously the money isn't needed, it's only wanted. Our greedy corrupt government is tax gouging and it is killing us.

Here's an idea Mr. president. Why not cut the federal gas tax. We all know there has been hysteria over gas prices and the people are actually scared. Don't you think they'll buy more and help the economy if they know they don't have to worry about gas prices? But unlike the state government, the federal government may actually have to cut some budget to pull this off. I hate to say this, but Bush isn't doing a great job with the economy. Pork barrel spending is at 27.3 billion dollars since 2005, he hasn't vetoed a thing, and he's running on a huge deficit. With all of this going on, Bush's other tax cuts will not last, and neither would gas tax cuts if these problems don't get fixed.