A new little black box for your car plus a bonus tax.

[XH29N0G]

           
People forget that inflation takes the value out of taxes too.  XXX cents of tax money per gallon isn't what it used to be.  

So your post prompted me to do some searching.  It looks like inflation adjusted price of gas is high compared to most times except the teens and 1920's.  It also looks like the inflation adjusted federal gas tax has been steadily dropping since the mid 90's after a spike that started in the 1980's.  What surprised me most was that the inflation adjusted tax for my state which I thought was high has also been steadily dropping.  If they account for miles driven per gallon it drops more - but that just reflects  a change in the average gas mileage.  There has been a flurry of roadwork recently in my area (which I like because the roads need it and the bad ones cost me $$) but I had thought it would have kicked up the gas taxes.  I think I get a  

[Mike DC]

       
Whose rate of inflation are you using? The official Consumer Price Index is basically govt propaganda.  Real inflation has been up near 10% for a long time.   

[ws23rt]

     
Whose rate of inflation are you using? The official Consumer Price Index is basically govt propaganda.  Real inflation has been up near 10% for a long time.    

It is true  Inflation sneaks up on us bit by bit like always.  It is not something the media tells us like they used too.
At the rate they are printing money now inflation will automatically correct at a much faster rate. (we will wake up and feel it like never before).

It's just another sneaky tax.

[XH29N0G]

I was indiscriminate on choosing my sources.  Simple web search for historic ___ inflation adjusted.  Some sites were .org some were governmental.  The tax graphs looked basically the same site to site.  I am not an economist, caveat emptor.  All seemed to show inflation adjusted gas taxes decreasing in recent times and spiking in the 1980's/1990's.  The price of gas though was high recently (assume due to demand and other factors).  

[Mike DC]

    
Gas has gone up in recent years because oil is just getting more expensive to get out of the ground worldwide.  The oil industry wouldn't be poking holes in places like deepwater seabeds if they didn't have to.  The cheaper oilfields have been found & tapped a long time ago.  

Gas went up, it stayed up until the demand was knocked down (read: the economy went to shit), and then finally fell back to a more normal price when the ongoing demand level was under more control (read: the economy stayed shitty).  

[Lord Warlock]

as long as oil prices are remaining high, we'll keep fracking it out of oil shale, until we are the largest oil producer in the world.  Then we may be able to reduce prices somewhat after we wean ourselves off of mideast/OPEC oil. 

[Mike DC]

         
Prices are never coming down IMO.  Not dramatically down in inflation-adjusted dollars.  

We knew how to frack decades ago.  It's just recently been domestically employed on a larger scale because the price of oil got high enough to make it cost-effective.  Without the high price, the fracking stops and the supply of domestic oil starts looking a lot smaller again.

[Lord Warlock]

Actually, as production of oil shale gets bigger, prices can come down because the ability to export oil will finance the lower price here in the states, just like most other oil producers have low local prices.  Keep in mind that we have plenty of other oil sources to use that are cheaper to produce from, The more productive fracking becomes, the cheaper the process will get,  they'll figure out easier and more efficient means to extract it over time. 

I wouldn't expect to see 1.00 gas again anytime soon, especially with the government giving money to everyone, but we also don't have to be stuck with 4.00 to 6.00 a gallon either,

[F8-4life]

 the future is coming to soon