David Skaggs: “I just want to register my concerns in opposition to what I believe is a very ill-advised move that the Congress seems…”

“I just want to register my concerns in opposition to what I believe is a very ill-advised move that the Congress seems determined to take. Not that any of us want to see consumers paying more for gasoline or other products. But we should be under no illusions as to what this will do that is beneficial, and, more importantly, what it will do that is really not in the national interest, if we repeal this 4.3-cent-a-gallon tax. The premise, of course, is that somehow the huge increase that we have all experienced at the gasoline pumps over the last couple of months, 20 cents a gallon or so, in most places around the country, is being driven by a 4-cent-a-gallon tax that was enacted several years back. I think that premise of course falls of its own weight, upon any kind of examination at all. It makes no sense to me whatsoever, as we are trying gamely to get the Federal budget balanced, to go out of our way to eliminate one of the things that has provided a success story over the last 3 years in cutting the deficit in half; namely, that 4-cent-a-gallon gas tax that was part of the 1993 budget package.”