by Kerry Thomas
May 17, 2007
There’s an old saying that goes “you can’t get blood from a
turnip.” Our Democrat-controlled
legislatures in Madison and Washington have all but forgotten this old phrase.
Just this week, Congress announced it plans to vote on a
$2,900,000,000,000.00 budget. They plan
to spend $2.9 Trillion of our money for us next year. This, after they completely abandoned any attempt to pass a
budget this year.
Meanwhile, a national AP story out of Merrill reported that
our benevolent State was considering suing the BP oil company (on behalf of
Wisconsin consumers) because one of it’s stations offered a discount on
gasoline prices. Seems discounting gas
prices violates the spirit of Wisconsin’s 1930’s-era Unfair Sales Act (Ch 100.30 Wis Stats),
also known as the Minimum Markup Law, a law which was supposed to protect
consumers from “unfair/predatory pricing” (discounts) by legislating a minimum
markup on retail prices. (Just another
example of an omnipotent legislature in action.)
The outcry
over this story was so great that it prompted the President of the Wisconsin
Petroleum Marketing & Convenience Store Association to issue a subsequent press
release explaining that the state of Wisconsin did not stop any gas
stations in the Wausau/Merrill area from issuing discounts. The Department of Agriculture, Trade &
Consumer Protection did mail gasoline retailers in the area an explanation of
Wisconsin’s Unfair Sales Act, “in order to answer questions, respond to
complaints, and to inform new owners of the law.” No official action was taken against any stations in the Wausau/
Merrill area. There was neither an
official investigation nor any enforcement activity taken against any retailer
in the Wausau/Merrill area.
With regard to fuel pricing,
Wisconsin’s Unfair Sales Act requires gasoline retailers to mark up their
prices by either 6% over their cost or 9.18% over the average posted terminal
price from the retailer’s wholesaler.
If your local retailer pays $3/gallon for gas, he has to, by law, charge
you a minimum of $3.18/gallon for that gas.
Let’s not forget the extra excise
and other taxes we pay to our governments for our gas.
The federal government tacks on an
extra 18.2¢ per gallon in excise taxes and another 9.2¢ per gallon in other
taxes (total 27.4¢ per gal). The state
of Wisconsin adds 30.9¢ per gallon in excise taxes and another 2.0¢ per gallon
in other taxes (total 32.9¢ per gal) to the price we all pay for gasoline. That adds up to 60.3¢ in taxes on every
gallon of gasoline we buy.
As of May 14, 2007 the nationwide
average retail price at the pump for all grades of gasoline was
$3.143/gal. If we subtracted Wisconsin's
minimum markup factor (17.79¢) and the taxation factor (60.3¢), our pump price
would be just $2.36/gal.
[UPDATE May 21, 2007 – The nationwide average pump price has
jumped to $3.258/gal. Wisconsin’s
minimum markup factor on this figure would be 18.44¢]
It’s time we demanded our legislators repeal Wisconsin’s
Unfair Sales Act – at least on gasoline.
It would be a start. They tried
to repeal the law in 2005 but the bill got hung up in bureaucratic legislative
committees. And now our Legislature is
on vacation until after summer.
I guess when the government talks about alternative fuels,
they’re talking about squeezing gas from us turnips.