McCain Offers Temporary Gas Tax Suspension; How it Will Affect Me

On Tuesday, April 15, Senator John McCain offered a temporary solution to the roaring gas prices, a gas tax suspension. He wants to suspend the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It sounds great and all, but is this such a great idea?

The temporary gas tax suspension will help a lot of us since gas prices are going up and it's almost hitting the $4 mark, well it has already reached that in some places. We will be able to save some money and use it on other things like bills and maybe entertainment for our family and friends. We have been cutting back lately on many things because of the gas prices. I know I have.

I haven't been going out to eat that much, and I have to budget even more this time around because of gas prices. I also haven't been driving too much lately and traveling is getting too expensive. Everything else is going up because of the gas prices like the price of meet and groceries. It is definitely harder to do anything these days because of gas prices. Vacations are being put off because of gas prices. Plane tickets are getting more expensive and flying up to northern California to see my family is getting harder and harder.

But is the temporary gas tax suspension worth it?

Yes, the gas tax suspension has its benefits, but we have to look at this in the long run. If the gas tax suspension goes through, many people will purchase gas because it is cheaper. This only means many people are going to be on the road and the demand for gas will just get higher. What does that mean for our economy? Well that means that gas prices will just continue going up from there.

The higher the demand, the higher the prices will get. So we're just going to go back from where we started -- high gas prices. Another negative effect of this is the carbon emissions. Like I said, more people will want to drive if the gas prices go down and if more people drive, then there will be more carbon emissions. That will greatly affect our environment and won't help solve the excessive amount of carbon emissions that causes global warming.

So the question is, is the gas tax suspension offered by Senator John McCain a good idea?

I believe that the gas tax suspension has more negative effects that it has positive ones. It isn't such a great idea to do this now. Yes, saving some money because of the gas tax suspension sounds great but like I said, we have to look at this in the long run, not just what it's going to do now. Plus the gas prices will go up once Labor Day is over anyway.