Pain to the Federal Gas Tax

The title "Death to the Federal Gas Tax" is slightly misleading. The tax wouldn't entirely be abolished, just reduced to 4 cents a gallon, rather than 18 cents per gallon right now. If gutting the tax in such a way is such a good thing, in that it will reduce bureaucratic waste and redundancy, why not be rid of it entirely? The goal here is to allow the states the levy their own taxes, which will reduce those inefficiencies, but we might eliminate them entirely if the states are allowed complete control over their own taxes.

I'm afraid that these half-measures, while they're good in the short term by reducing costs on the whole, will have negative effects int he long term. A 4 cent tax on gas isn't nearly as much of a burden as an 18 cent tax is, but that also means that it's less likely to be noticed. But enough 4 cent taxes add up eventually to be much more burdensome, only no one knows where to look for reducing that burden because these taxes are too small to be notices.

It's wishful thinking to assume that any politician might want to support that notion. At least I can't complain that they're raising taxes.