The wisdom of Maine’s elite opinion makers is questionable when discussing gasoline prices. On this issue, the intuitive answer is the correct one: Maine’s gas tax should go down, not up.

Gas prices don’t hurt people only as they’re pumping. Every milk jug at the grocery stores, every shirt at the department stores, was shipped there in a truck, running on diesel fuel or gasoline. Home heating oil is shipped in trucks.

The price of transportation is passed on, hitting people again and again.

Remember, also, that the gas tax strikes the poor the hardest. The prince and the pauper both pay the same 28 cents per gallon. It’s not like a progressive income tax, where people who can afford it pay a higher rate, and those of modest means catch a break. The wealthy can afford a hybrid vehicle – a gas-saver too costly for most Mainers.

Public policy must clear the way for electric, hydrogen and natural gas vehicles. But ordinary Mainers cannot be expected to bear the growing burden of gas prices before those alternatives are widely available.

If Maine spent its money as effectively as other states, the regressive tax, set 10 cents higher than in neighboring states, would not be needed.

Dana Coffin, Auburn