Lessons Learned the Hard Way: on Energy & Oil


Gas tax sounds OK in DC, but not outside Beltway

When the Bush Administration tried to convince me that a gasoline tax increase would be okay and would barely be noticed, I tested the theory with two phone calls. First I called my mother-in-law in Leetonia, Ohio, and then I called my older daughter in Greensboro, North Carolina. My mother-in-law is retired, at the time, aged 75. She has a lot of friends who live on limited incomes, and driving happens to be one of their pleasures. She was personally against the idea of a gas tax increase, and she thought the idea would go down very badly with her friends. Then I called my daughter Kathy. She runs a small business, and her husband is the tennis coach at the university. Her reaction was, to put it mildly, scathing. “What planet do they live on?” she asked. She thought such a tax increase was the very antithesis of why people had elected the Republicans. After those two conversations, any doubts I may have had simply vanished, and I opposed the tax increase.
Source: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, by Newt Gingrich, p. 29-30 Jul 2, 1998

  • The above quotations are from Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report, by Newt Gingrich.
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