Lest I get kicked off Brett's blog roll...

I've been incredibly busy lately, as usual, but there's something I've been kicking around in my mind lately.

I agree with Barack Obama on precious few issues, but there's one currently floating around lately that he's got it right on. And that would be the lifting of the gas tax.

It's a terrible idea for several reasons. First of all, taxes aren't the reason that gas prices are through the roof. Taxes only make up about 13 percent of the price of gas. The cost of crude oil makes up 68 percent of the price. (Source) With crude prices hovering around $120 a barrel, gas prices are going to go up.

I'm all in favor of lowering taxes, don't get me wrong, but it's going to do -- if I may use a technically term -- precisely dick to lower gas prices.

Lowering gas prices is going to take a lot more than a tax holiday. As such, the anger and frustration of the high gas prices should lay squarely at the feet of the government. Not exclusively this administration, but this administration, this congress, and every administration and congress over the last 30 years.

The energy policy in this country has been one of two things: terrible or non-existent. We complain about gas prices while we simultaneously refuse to explore domestic oil opportunities, increase domestic refining capacity, or increase nuclear power for electricity generation (thus leaving more oil for gasoline.)

Hillary Clinton's criticism of Obama's criticism of her gas tax holiday has been "well at least I have an idea, what's your idea?"

Right. Well. Sometimes no idea is better than a bad idea.