The family minivan was at the pump at my neighborhood SuperAmerica when I bumped up against my credit card cut-off again:

The pump hit $50.00, then shut down. Just 14 gallons, shy of a full tank. I put my card back in the slot and re-started the pump. Two gallons more -- another $7. I was full, and tapped out.

I had spent $57 for 16.5 gallons, at $3.53 a gallon. Shouldn't I get a massage with that?

If I'm going to pay $3.53 a gallon and throw fistfuls of Andrew Jacksons at a gas pump, I want to get something more tangible than fumes for my money. And of more value to me than potholes, road congestion and falling bridges.

I want my tax dollar's worth. And you do, too

The fact, my friends (I've been listening to John McCain a lot lately) is that the gas taxes in this country and state are inadequate to the task of keeping our roads, bridges and transportation system running.

And stupid ideas from presidential candidates like McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton about giving us a summer "gas-tax holiday" are not going to help anyone but the oil companies, which will just take more if they don't have to collect taxes while gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon.

Who's going to notice a few cents here and there? Exxon will. But for the rest of us, a gas-tax holiday is a cheap scam.

Do your math. I figure that my family could save $46 this summer, but only if we drive twice as many miles as usual or take a trip to California. If we just go to Duluth and do the usual amount of driving this summer, we will save $23.

That's $1.77 a week.

What kind of morons do McCain and Hillary take us for? Don't answer. It's not clear what kind of morons we are.

But this is clear: Paying gas taxes -- even at a time of record gas prices -- is not a Democratic thing or a Republican thing. It is an American thing. And it may be the only way out of our transportation funding crisis.

Don't take that from me. Take it from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, a bipartisan group appointed by Congress that studied the problem for two years and recently reported back with a plan that cuts through all the political pandering:

Not a gas-tax holiday. A gas-tax increase. A really big one.

At least 25 cents a gallon.

Before you blow a gasket, let me tell you that a majority of the commission's members were appointed by Republicans and included notable conservatives like Paul Weyrich, founding president of the Heritage Foundation.

(You can learn more about the commission at www.transp ortationfortomorrow.org).

"The orthodoxy in the conservative movement is don't raise any tax," Weyrich said when the commission made its report in January. "But in this particular instance, I don't see any alternative."

Well said. Roads are crumbling, bridges are falling, gas prices are soaring and we are getting nowhere fast. Actually, we're not getting nowhere. We're going backward: The commission said transportation funding is running $100 billion a year behind needs.

Clinging to empty rhetoric

Unfortunately, politicians don't always read the reports they ask for, or follow the advice they receive. Too often, they pander to their base and cling to empty rhetoric of the "no new tax" variety at the expense of making government work. So Secretary of Transportation and Friend of Tim Pawlenty Mary Peters, who denied that there was a transportation crisis after the Interstate 35W bridge fell, rejected the report of her own commission. Maybe the roads will heal themselves.

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. The state tax, which increased by 2 cents last month, is 22 cents. That's a total of 40.4 cents a gallon, or $6.67 in taxes on my minivan's 16.5 gallons.

Less than 12 percent of the money I paid to SuperAmerica. And for my money?

I got roads I hate to drive on, bridges I'm afraid to cross and commutes that eat up amounts of time and money I can't afford. This is nuts.

Twenty years ago, with the state tax 20 cents and the federal tax 18.4, we were paying just $1.08 for a gallon. Gas taxes -- building and maintaining roads and bridges -- were 37 percent of the cost.

Three times as much as now.

Even if the commission's 25-cent increase were in effect, the taxes on my fill-up would still have been just $10.79 -- 19 percent of the total, and about half the tax percentage of 20 years ago.

So, let's get real, my friends. We don't need a gas-tax holiday. We need to get more out of gas taxes.

All that crazy anti-gas-tax rhetoric you hear is aimed at chumps. And chump change is what you will save. While your roads deteriorate, along with your quality of life.

Nick Coleman • ncoleman@startribune.com