As State 29 pointed out:
It's a 350 mile round trip from Dubuque to Milwaukee. A 2000 Ford Taurus is rated at 29 mpg for highway speeds. That means Mr Clarke would burn just over 12 gallons of gas. If he pays an average of $2.29 a gallon, the trip to Milwaukee and back will cost about $27.50.
But the guy featured in the article had no problem spending $70 per week to commute from Dubuque to ACT in Iowa City. That's a 90-minute trip one way. Even I'm not that nuts, my commute's only half that.
The Tusk and Talon piece really shows the idiocy of the rationale, though:
Now, the story points out that this is a yearly trip. They've done it once a year for the last few years. Let's say that gas cost $1.50 per gallon last year. Over the 12 gallons of gas used, that works out to an extra $9.60 more than it cost last year. If gas was a 1.80 last year, then it works out to all of $4.80 extra. So, we are to believe that the five to ten bucks put this right out of the window of affordability.
Talk about straws breaking camel's backs. If this was the catalyst to call off a family tradition, I'd characterize it more as the dust speck on the back of the gnat that landed on the straw that broke the camel's back.
Yes, gas is expensive. Yes, we should be frantically trying to replace it with a cheap, renewable source of energy. But let's not use fuzzy math to create an unwarranted sob story. That's just stupid.
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