It is an article of faith for many people that money collected by the government will be put to holy causes, as opposed to the money collected by gas companies, which will be wasted on the mundane task of producing and delivering gasoline to consumers.

In fact, a lot of government money gets thrown down various ratholes, even just in the energy field. The current ethanol craze has yet to hit the fan like the windmill craze did back when it was a big tax shelter, but wait for it. There would be billion-dollar programs to get energy from weasel poop if we had a Senator whose state was a major producer of weasel poop.

Our government wouldn't reduce taxes on gasoline if the world were ending tomorrow. Somehow the government is the only entity in our society that simply cannot, for any reason, get by on less money.

If our entire country was the size of Maryland, we would probably be a lot more calm about gas prices, too.