Motorists would not pay the 20-cent state tax on each gallon of gas for three months — perhaps this summer — under legislation that was tentatively approved by the Texas House on Tuesday.

During debate on Senate Bill 1886, a rather mundane proposal tweaking how the state collects gas taxes and monitors gas-tax fraud, House members voted 118-16 to tack on language suspending the gas tax for three months.

Statesman

Given all the things that our legislators here in Austin could be doing they have to focus time on trying to give us a tax break on Gas? Let’s do some quick math here.

Say I have a 15 gallon tank and that I fill the tank up at least once a week. Say average 4 weeks in a month (and they say they will do this for 3 months). So that’s ((15 x .20) x 4) x 3 = 36 - (i’m an english major so i could be wrong, but…heh) - so $36 bucks - wow. Of course that’d be more for the people who drive gas-guzzlers…who can afford the car payment and high gas…wait a minute…wtf? So the logic is to give it back and take money away from building roads and paying for education.

Honestly, don’t piss us off with a few dollars here or there. The purposes of taxes is to do something good for the collective. Don’t “give it back” - do something with it - and certainly don’t take away from roads (which you have royally fucked up already in Austin) and don’t take away from education (only a 69% graduation rate from high school). At the very least put the money back in CHIP or something. And if you want to give something back how about really getting rid of property taxes or finding some other fiscally responsible but permanent way to cut taxes. This 3 month gas tax break is such a tease.

Update: Related to my state senator (Jeff Wentworth) my position on the matter. Hopefully this thing will get dropped in conference…weeeee.