[fabsroman]

DaMadman,

Seems as though you want your cake and you want to eat it too. You want to live an hour away from work in a nice neighborhood, you want to send your kids to a nice school, you want to keep your gov't job with all the benefits, and you want gas prices to be low.

Got news for you, the execs and stockholders at all the oil companies want the same thing as you and they need to make money to get it. Everybody knew what they were into when they took their jobs and bought their vehicles. If it was a long commute, they knew they would be in for a doozy if gas prices went up. If they bought a SUV or truck, they knew they would be in for a doozy if gas prices went up.

Now gas prices went up and everybody is complaining because they want there cake and they want to eat it too. Just like you have the freedom to live where you live and work where you work, the gas companies should have the freedom to charge whatever they want for gas until we stop buying it.

Everybody wants to lower taxes, but they also want to get rid of traffic congestion by building more roads. We want better police officers and Court systems but we don't want to pay taxes.

Everybody wants, but nobody is willing to give up anything either.

For what I paid for my townhouse, I could have bought a 3,200 sf house in Gainesville, Virginia right next to where my fiance works. However, we determined that I could not change clientele, but she could change Target locations, so we bought in Maryland right in the middle of my clients and the Courts.

Yes, I would love to live in a 3,200 sf house that is brand new instead of a 1,800 sf townhouse that is 7 years old. Yes, I would love to drive my new truck more instead of having to drive my Taurus all the time now because of gas prices. I would even love to own my own farm.

However, I understand that I cannot have everything I want in this world. Americans are starting to get soft in that they want everything and they want it today. That is why the average American household has several thousands of dollars on credit cards at a time and they cannot get rid of the debt. Yes, I want to buy an Armalite AR-10, a Beretta PX4 Storm when it is available, a Beretta 687EL Gold, a .25-06 Ruger MKII77VT, and a Ford 500, Ford Fusion, Ford Explorer, Ford Expedition, or Lincoln Zephyr, but I realize that I cannot have everything I want. I want a 5,000 sf house right next to where I am currently living, but I understand that I cannot have that either.

Like the rest of you, I want gas prices to be cheaper, along with the cost of food, health insurance, malpractice insurance, housing, taxes, guns, ammunition and everything else I want, however, that is not the way it works.

Everybody complaining about the gas prices reminds me of people complaining about health insurance.

We have a bill of rights and that bill does not include the right to:

1. Gas
2. Health Insurance
3. A luxury house
4. A SUV
5. A long happy life

We all need to prioritize what is important and go from there. In my area, everybody lives in Frederick and further north and commutes down to Bethesda and DC to work.

At the end of the day, I just don't see spending 10 hours a week on the road commuting back and forth to work or spending the money on gas. Assuming that it is an hour drive each way and you are doing 60 mph on average that would be 31,200 commuting miles a year. If your car gets 25 mpg, that would be 1,248 gallons a year to commute which ends up being $3,744 a year just in gas if gas is $3 a gallon. If you buy a $20,000 car that will last for 150,000 miles before needing to be replaced, that would be $4,000 a year in depreciation on that car. We are already at $8,000 a year and we haven't even touched the cost of insurance when you are truthful and tell them that you have a 60 mile one way commute to and from work each day or the cost of maintaining the vehicle. So, lets just round it out to $10,000 a year to commute. Might as well spend that money on a house closer to work even if your mortgage is an extra $1,000 a month.

Not to mention all the time wasted driving to and from work which is 520 hours a year if you have to commute one hour each way.

Stop crying and do something about the situation, and choose what is important to you and make the sacrifices you need to make to get it.