Tomorrow, I have to take the credit card up to my nearest gas station, get somewhat more than a gallon of gas, more than enough to go to work and then to a gas station after I deposit my paycheck, taking out enough money to feed my gas tank so that I can go back to work tomorrow to do the same thing again.

Something is wrong here.

Happy news! U-Serve, regular un-leaded gas has finally broken $4.00 and is down to $3.999!

$3.51 and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is promoting wind power.

Yeah, I saw that. He's the guy who said he'd give a million dollars to anyone who could disprove what the Swift Vetters were spouting off about Kerry. When taken up on that bet, he quickly changed his tune.

Great guy.

Americans are driving less because of fuel prices. "Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April 2008 than at the same time a year earlier and 400 million miles less than in March of this year." We're changing our habits, using more fuel-efficient automobiles and more public transportation.

That's a good thing, to me. What isn't such a good thing is that the DoT on both federal and a state levels are losing tax revenue as a result.

Are there any other unintended consequences?

Unintended consequences that are unintended benefits, I say. DOT always says they need more money to do more work because people are driving more. Well, now people are driving less. DOT should need less money. Any dip in revenue should also highlight to them where and how they can spend money better, like fix what needs fixing, not repave the same road for 3rd time in 3 years or go on high dollar vacations, er... "business trips" on our dime.

I agree it will be interesting to see how government gets along with a reduction in their enormous windfall tax profits. After all, by definition "windfall" refers to something you get without any effort on you part. That obviously doesn't apply the oil companies who DO spend a great deal of money to make their money, whereas the various government entities who suckle off the oil company tit through aggressive taxation of the oil company product; now THAT is "windfall profit."

Can you tell us abut the various government entities currently profiting excessively from aggressive taxation of the oil company's products?

In Ct. there is a 36 cents/gal. tax on gas. The tax itself never stopped consumers from driving, only the high price of gasoline eventually did.

Now the oil companies know our breaking point...four dollars a gallon. So gas will hover around 3.80 - 3.50 for a while and we'll all think we were blessed that oil is so cheap. We're suckers.

After a while it'll inch back up again, as the companies once again test the four-dollar breaking point and see if they can get beyond it.

Business as usual.

First of all I didn't the word "excessive." You did. The 8% to 10% profit made by the oil companies is far less than the profits made by other industries, yet you never hear the terms "windfall profits" or "excessive profits" applied to them.

The term "windfall" itself originated in the idea of the wind blowing fruit from tree down to the ground where it was accessible to anyone passing by. People who put no effort into the planting, pruning or watering of the trees were unexpectedly benefiting without any effort on their own part other than bending over to pick up the fruit.

This concept would apply to the government far more than the oil companies that do have to invest in their own industry to produce oil and manufacture a product. All the labor and/or capital investment the government has invested in the project is voting to tax the labor and investment others have gone to. After that, legislators go about their merry way with no further effort required and the dollars continue to roll in. That is a windfall.

However, I am curious as to why, just a few weeks ago, the high price of oil/gasoline was the fault of "Big Oil." Then a couple of weeks ago the price was the fault of Wall Street speculators. Then the price started coming down and nobody blamed the speculators for bringing the price down but NOW you're saying the lower prices are a plot by....wait for it...BIG OIL. Are we still having problems finding a bogeyman to blame? Or does blame simply blow with the wind?

That would probably be due to the fact that nobody makes an $11 billion dollar quarterly profit(you know, net profit, after taxes and expenses and all that costs the company money). It's amazing what $4 a gallon will do for your bottom line.