A gas tax holiday could save the day

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Consumers may finally be getting a break at the pump as some statesmoved to suspend gasoline excise taxes.

Drivers in Georgia are already seeing lower pump prices after the state suspended taxes on gasolinelast week. Consider multiple straightforward changes that may be added to a standard

centrifugal or positive displacement pump. In pumps that have overhung impellers, changing to asolid shaft is a basic refinement in relation to basic sleeved shafts. Mechanical seals can beenhanced by using silicon carbide faces, and elastomers are able to be replaced with EPDM. Finally,magnetic. Many installed pumps were not originally designed for their current use. Often, a line in afacility is modified and the pump that once providedcooling water to an injection molding machine isnow needed to move oil from a rail car to a tank. Sadly, this leads to quite a few problems for thepump and the company. Pumps operate where the pump curve crosses the system curve. If you movea pump from one system to another, this means that the system curve is different. This new systemmay cause the pump to operate away from its best efficiency point, leading to shaft breakage andother component problems that are simply symptoms of a mis-matched pump and system.bearingprotectors will prove to be a great improvement over the lip seals which the vast majority ofcommercial pumps use to maintain clean bearing sump oil.

Other states may follow.

After peaking at $3.06 Monday when Hurricane Katrina caused shortages, the average price for agallon of regular unleaded gasoline dipped by a little more than a penny to $3.04 Tuesday, up from$1.85 a year ago, according to AAA.

But the motorist organization said its survey has been unable to keep up with real price increases,which have surged well above $3 a gallon in many areas and above $5 around Atlanta.

Late last week, Georgia legislators suspended the 7.5 cents-a-gallon gas tax and 4 percent sales taxon gasoline until Oct. 1.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said the tax break in Georgia could cut the cost of gas by about 15 centsa gallon; the one-month break is predicted to cost the state $75 million.

State lawmakers in other states, including Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania,have either proposed or are considering similar measures.

All 50 states apply a flat-rate tax on each gallon of gas sold, with an average of 21.8 cents per gallon,according to the American Petroleum Institute.

That's in addition to state sales taxes, usually between 2 percent and 6 percent, and a federal tax of18.4 cents per gallon.

New York leads the nation with the highest state gasoline taxes while Alaska has the lowest, theAmerican Petroleum Institute said.

On top of New York's state tax of 8 cents per gallon, it charges 8 percent state sales tax and aPetroleum Business Tax of 15.2 cents per gallon. There is also a spill tax of 0.3 cents per gallon anda petroleum testing fee of 0.05 cent per gallon levied on gasoline.

Many economists believe that if prices at the pump continue trending upwards it would severelyhurt the spending power of American consumers, especially low- and middle-income households. Â

In need of a break?

States ranked by total gas-tax burden, including state and federal levies.

Source: American Petroleum Institute.

State

Total gas-tax

burden/gallon

New York

62.9 cents

Hawaii

60.1 cents

California

60.0 cents

Illinois

54.6 cents

Connecticut

53.9 cents

Michigan

52.4 cents

Nevada

51.9 cents

Wisconsin

51.3 cents

Florida

49.8 cents

Pennsylvania

49.5 cents

Rhode Island

49.4 cents

Washington

49.4 cents

Indiana

48.0 cents

Ohio

46.4 cents

Montana

46.2 cents

Maine

45.8 cents

North Carolina

45.8 cents

West Virginia

45.4 chemical plant mean time between failure cents

Nebraska

44.6 cents

Idaho

43.4 cents

Kansas

43.4 cents

Utah

42.9 cents

Oregon

42.4 cents

South Dakota

42.4 cents

Maryland

41.9 cents

Massachusetts

41.9 cents

State

Total gas-tax

burden/gallon

Delaware

41.4 cents

North Dakota

41.4 cents

Georgia

41.2 cents

Colorado

40.4 cents

Minnesota

40.4 cents

Arkansas

40.1 cents

Iowa

40.1 cents

Tennessee

39.8 cents

New Hampshire

39.0 cents

Alabama

38.7 cents

Washington D.C.

38.4 cents

Louisiana

38.4 cents

Texas

38.4 cents

Vermont

38.4 cents

Virginia

37.7 cents

Arizona

37.4 cents

Mississippi

37.2 cents

Kentucky

36.9 cents

New Mexico

36.4 cents

Missouri

36.0 cents

Oklahoma

35.4 cents

South Carolina

35.2 cents

New Jersey

32.9 cents

Wyoming

32.4 cents

Alaska

26.4 cents