A Gift For The New Year

For 2012 the State of North Carolina gave to me...

a 3.9 cent per gallon gas tax increase, to go along with the 2.5 cent per gallon increase last July.  Thanks a lot you sonsabitches. It's not like we didn't have the highest gas prices in the surrounding states already.

This brings the tax up to 38.9 cents per gallon. In a ten gallon purchase $3.89 of it is taxes, enough to buy another gallon. Gas prices for a single gallon of 87 octane unleaded is now averaging at $3.286, without the tax the gas would be under $3.00 per gallon.  It's not the oil companies that are gouging you at the pumps, and it isn't the gas stations that are getting rich off of gasoline sales.

This was a final gift of the outgoing Democratic majority in the North Carolina Senate, who refused to consider a bill to cap the gas tax at 35 cents per gallon. On the 26th of this month a Republican majority will take up the mantle.

We'll see how they do.