The current focus on targeting corporate entities to reduce gasoline prices overlooks the key component in all this - government.

Have you heard this proposal to reduce gasoline prices; “...We CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON"T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.”

This is a very flawed way to try and reduce gasoline prices. First, Exxon and Mobil are one Corporate entity now, have been since 1999, but did you know that, depending on locale, 30% to 40% of gasoline prices are federal, state and local taxes?

Everyone targets "greedy" corporations but no one wants to point the finger at "greedy" bureaucRATS.

These taxes DO NOT pay for the highway programs, that comes out of a general fund, just like Social Security (there is no "lock box," just a general taxpayer fund).

Two of the biggest problems are government created. The first is the excessive taxation, the second is the failure of the FTC (The Federal Trade Commission) to block a number of huge mergers that reduced competition within the oil industry.

Like it or not (and I don’t) we have a regulated market and the primary job of the FTC is to maintain a “competitive” environment within various industries.

They should never have allowed the mergers of Exxon and Mobil (‘99) and British Petroleum and Amocco (’98), Marathon and Ashland (’98) and Chevron and Texaco (’01) and Phillips and Conoco (’01), as well as BP-Amocco’s acquisition of Atlantic Richfield or ARCO (’01).

These mergers have reduced competition and put an upward pressure on prices.

Hey! Putting pressures on the corporate end is fine, but it's NOT enough. If "greedy" government isn't reined in, nothing will ever change for the better.

Imagine if those taxes were eliminated in California - instead of paying $1.97/gallon, consumers there would be paying around $1.18/gallon for their gas!

We need a two-pronged focus. It's fine to put pressure on corporate entities, but we must also put even more pressure on government to reduce or eliminate those unwarranted gasoline taxes.

Think about it, when the government taxes energy, they’re adding cost to everything else from distribution (trucking and shipping) to production (Petroleum taxes add to the costs of running machinery and heating and cooling factories and warehouses).

Petroleum taxes are the most anti-growth and anti-consumerist taxes in existence. If you looked closely at the dates of those mergers, most of them occurred toward the end of the Clinton administration, so it’s neither a Democratic or Republican agenda, it’s a governmental one.