Ever since I first heard about the idea of a flat tax, I thought it sounded pretty cool. But I was hushed by the voices of my colleagues, who called a flat tax "regressive", and further indicated that I was a traitor to my class. The idea, they would tell me, is to tax the rich more so that the poor don't have to pay taxes.

One little bitty problem with that. Nobody gets out of paying taxes. Noone. In fact, when the oil prices began their stratospheric climb, I distinctly remember a member of the Sierra Club stating that he wanted gas prices in the $5-6 range, with the resulting revenues paying for renewable energy.

Just who exactly does he think drives? Not only would it cripple our trucking industry and drive up prices at the grocery store, but it would also affect us every time we have to drive to the grocery. Because the most fuel efficient vehicles will make it to the people who can most appreciate their usefulness dead last.

Now Congress is once again playing games with politics. They passed a bill requiring more stringent mileage standards by 2020 (which begs the question, if we are running out of oil, and if global warming from human activity is causing such a catastrophic, irreversible effect, why not pass a bill requiring cars NOT USE GAS by 2020? Inquiring minds want to know!), and now it stands to be votoed. Because in their infinite wisdom of piling on stupid stuff, they added in a rider that would increase taxes on fuel and natural gas.

Who do you think's going to use that natural gas, big guys?

The high gas prices are here and not going away for the average consumer. I'm currently looking at continuing on to my Bachelor's degree, and a commute is out of the question. It would be a 100 mile drive to one campus, 120 miles to another. As a result, uprooting and moving is all but inevitable, and, while we don't like the town we live in much (read: AT ALL!), we like the town up the road quite a bit. And I genuinely like my job. But liking my job won't put fuel in the tank, so the realities of finance are going to require a move, which would not be my first choice.

And we're hardly alone. Natural gas has risen to three times the price it was three years ago, and it's looking like this winter will be more of the same. Add taxes onto my drive, add taxes onto the natural gas, and who will suffer? Bill Gates? Paris Hilton? Brittney Spears? No, they have their money and can drive all they want. the ones who will suffer are the poor, the working class, the very people these lying, filthy hypocritical Democrats claimed they CARED about when they enacted the minimum wage increase.

Poor people who show up to vote for Republicans are certainly fools. But poor people who show up to vote for Democrats are misguided sheep selling themselves down the river.