The REAL Gas Price Gougers

....are NOT the "Big Oil" companies:

[T]he biggest beneficiaries of gasoline sales are federal and state governments, not the oil industry.

[F]ederal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period.

And looky who wants to jack up gas taxes another twenty billion dollars.

Come to think of it, every tax increase is an exercise in public sector "gouging." But lefties have no problem with that strain of it because they're the ones who get to wallow naked in the confiscated cash.

We'll have to keep that rhetorical device in our blogging utility belts.

[HT: Powerline]