Carl the Cab Crusader

Paying $4.25 per gallon for gas? Perhaps you are wondering where all that money is going. Well, you can wonder no more. It is going to the sheiks in the Middle East. We buy our oil from them.

And what do the sheiks do with that money? They build nice, modest little homes and purchase custom made cars with silver body panels. (Yes, real silver, not silver paint.)

And what is our U.S. Senator doing about it? Well, Mr. Levin is on the record opposing any new (environmentally safe) drilling for oil. But why should he care. As a "resident" of Washington, D.C., he takes a taxi to work every day.

Following is testimony from the Congressional Record, 107th Congress First Session Wednesday, November 7, 2001:

Senator Levin: "Mr. President, since the late-1980s, I have urged the mayors of the District of Columbia…to replace the current taxicab zone fare with a meter system. The use of the zone system is especially unfair…with no basis on which to judge the accuracy of a particular fare. In my own experience, as a D.C. resident, I have encountered at least 10 different cab fares for the exact same trip... A metered system would eliminate this problem...There has been broken promise after broken promise. Mayor Williams' letter sets out a course of action. If it is not followed, I intend to bring this matter to a head next year -- after two decades of broken promises."