Recently, Clinton and McCain have begun touting a gas tax suspension to ease the burden on the consumer. Gas prices are soaring and we need relief. We don't need a band-aide, we need a major surgery to fix this problem and gas tax is not the problem.

Where is this energy independence we have heard so much about? Nowhere to be found and that is the real issue.

How about the candidates talk about the real problems and solutions, in 1961, Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth and eight years later, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. We had to win the space race against the "Red Communists of Russia" it was the American thing to do.

In eight years we perfected and in some cases developed the needed technology to take men to the moon and home again. Now it seems that finding a way to harness another energy source as a viable fuel alternative is taking decades. There is work being done on hydrogen cars and hybrids and ethanol, but not at the level it takes to truly make them viable. Why? Because for the space race, the government backed the industries needed to win that race, and we funded the efforts.

Now we have a bigger enemy to freedom in the Saudis and other OPEC countries and instead of racing to find away to break free from their control we are standing idle. How about the candidates talk about taking that extra 3 billion dollars from the gas tax and using all of it to funding the development of technologies to break us out of the grip of the OPEC oppressors.

Saving 18 cents a gallon is not going to do much for me and since they would not get elected until November, take office in January and then fight with congress over the proposal, relief will not come for over a year. In that time those billions of dollars, where are they going? If we are willing to give those tax dollars up, I am willing to see all those tax dollars go towards independent energy research and development.

With what has already been developed across the world, and an infusion of three to five billion dollars, America could forge ahead in the race for energy independence. Develop the technology at home, put it in the cars we build here at home, and then ship those vehicles to every country on the planet. Want to see American industry take off again? Develop a product the world needs. The world needs cleaner energy. We have the opportunities to provide that technology.

But where is the leadership? Pandering to a crisis without addressing the real problems. If you think Big Oil will lower their prices by 18 cents, you are kidding yourself. We talk about the 18 cents costing the American Tax Budget billions, think Big Oil will look at that and let billions just walk away from their pockets? Or even if they do, do you think that they will not pass costs of the windfall profit taxes on to the consumer?

This is not a solution, suspending the gas tax. The solution is in the American Public saying, we don't want to be slaves to Big Oil and OPEC. Take that tax money and use it to find ways to break us out of this oppression. Serve the people not the oil companies and other nations.