Bob Wise: “as I drove several hundred miles across the State of West Virginia yesterday visiting flood-hit areas, I stopped off at…”

“as I drove several hundred miles across the State of West Virginia yesterday visiting flood-hit areas, I stopped off at a lot of gasoline stations. I saw gasoline selling for everything and bulk gasoline selling for everything from $1.28 to $1.37 a gallon for 87 octane regular, and as I would stop, I would ask them how they felt about getting 4.3 cents back or having the Congress actually cut the gasoline tax by 4.3 cents. ``Where does it go, Bob? Are we going to get it?'' Well, of course, I told them that the Congress would not be permitted to offer an amendment guaranteeing it went to the consumer. ``You are telling us we don't automatically get it?'' ``No, you don't automatically get it. In fact the chances are good that the savings will actually go either to oil companies or to foreign oil producers.'' Well, what good does that do? They would be even less happy to know that the roughly $3 billion that this will cost while, yes, it will be made up by selling the spectrum in telecommunications, that that is $3 billion that could have been used for deficit reduction. And then again when we need more deficit reduction, what are they going to cut? That will be education. It is not a good deal.”