One of our radio listeners, Steve in Billings, raised a good question earlier in the week. Given the astronomical gas prices facing Montanans, why not suspend gas taxes? That would save, what, close to 30 cents a gallon?

Some states are already looking to do just that, as Evelyn Pyburn reported in this week's Big Sky Business Journal Hotsheet on Monday morning.

According to the New York Post, "Maryland acted first, pausing its gas tax for 30 days...in Georgia, the gas tax was waived through May 31, saving drivers $0.29 per gallon on gas and $0.32 per gallon on diesel."

Could the Governor of Montana suspend gas taxes? Would he suspend gas taxes? I reached out to his communications staff, but haven't heard back yet.

On Wednesday's Montana Talks statewide radio show, Rep. Jerry Schillinger (R-Circle) raised some good points. He basically laid the hike in gas prices at the feet of Joe Biden and his failed energy policy shutting down American energy development.

While suspending gas taxes sounds good, Rep. Schillinger says it could also impact road construction funding which is very important in Big Sky Country. What we need to do instead is fix this failed Biden energy policy approach. He also called for providing additional income tax relief to Montana taxpayers.

By the way, Congressman Matt Rosendale (R-MT) shared the latest numbers. the national average for gas was $2.87 a gallon one year ago. "Today, it’s $4.23 a gallon," he added.

His full tweet is below.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

 

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