That's Not Right #10 Gasoline Pricing & Taxes

There was some dust raised in the last couple of weeks over the idea of doing away with the Federal tax on gasoline for a couple of months to help the burden that increased prices had created. It appears that nothing is going to come of it however. Some of the states also chimed in briefly, probably only in the spirit of "me too" but not I fear, with any real seriousness. 

While I have seen no documentation to support this, my common sense tells me that people are now working to decrease the impact of these higher prices are having on their personal budgets by driving less than they used to and as little as they can get away with as gasoline prices continue to climb. I'm not an economist, but if my premise is correct and we are buying less gas, then the city, county, state, and federal governments are taking in less in the way of fuel tax revenue. 

Now if you hadn't realized this before, this is something that governments traditionally don't like to see happening. Governments, unlike individuals do not budget based on actual income, neither to they tighten their belts if income (revenue) decreases. They simply continue to spend money based on their estimated revenue and ignore the potential consequences.  

I'm not a prophet, but it doesn't take one to realize that we will soon be looking at a proposal to increase gasoline taxes in order to make up the revenue shortfall that the government will eventually discover. There will probably be an additional bit tagged on to help encourage us to use less gasoline, to reduce our carbon footprint and help the planet, and because this would be too good an opportunity to pass up (the fact that this will start the cycle again and threaten the revenue stream not withstanding).  

So let's sum up. High gas prices lead to less gas used and a proposal to do away with gasoline taxes temporarily. This in turn leads inevitably to an increase in gasoline taxes, which will lead in turn to even higher gas prices at the pumps. This may be some form of twisted government logic, but "that's not right".