Cliff Stearns: “the question today is who drove up the price of gasoline. In May 1993 the Federal gasoline tax was raised 18.3 cents a…”

“the question today is who drove up the price of gasoline. In May 1993 the Federal gasoline tax was raised 18.3 cents a gallon. That vote marked the third time in just over a decade that Congress increased the tax. Since December 1982, the Federal levy on gasoline has exploded 357 percent, even as the price of gasoline has trended steadily downward. Mr. Speaker, inventories were down because of the unusually long winter, a fire in California closed a Shell oil refinery, and Saddam Hussein's stubbornness in keeping 500,000 barrels a day of Iraqi crude oil have caused the price to go up. But who in fact drove the price of gasoline up? I submit that Congress under Democrat control did by raising the gasoline tax. It is pretty clear who the people in collusion are. It is the people here in the Federal Government. The Federal gasoline tax was hiked in 1983. It has been hiked ever since, and we need to understand that the Democrat-controlled Congress is at fault.”