Clean Air Tax

I had the occasion today to pay some more of my clean air tax.  What is that you say?  You have never heard of it?  Well let me share my story with you.  You see there are really evil polluters out there that bring you your groceries, your gasoline, your clothes, and anything else you own.  Yes we are the evil truckdrivers and we must be made to pay for that privilege.  As of the year of 2007 there were some new standards enacted for diesel vehicles, the first was a change in fuel formulation and then the addition of devices to the trucks that would reduce pollution.  Here is the cool part, you will pay more for the new fuel, oh and it requires new oils and additives for the engines, oh and there are two new filters that are on the trucks.  This first tax amounts to a one time payment in the vicinity of $10k.  Then there is the added lifetime tax on the fuel of  nearly $100k per truck based on an average lifespan of the truck being 10 years.  Oh wait there's more.  You see the wonderful Diesel Particulate Filter that is added to the truck also requires maintenance, as it must be cleaned approximately every 2 years, at a minimum cost of $600.  But wait, there's more, for only another $450 a year you get to burn 150 gallons of diesel in this DPF, to turn the soot to ash, so that every 2 years you can clean it.  Well you say, you deserve to be treated that way since you are such an evil polluter.  The thing is we have not seen a raise in the last 3 years since all this was introduced, no one wants to pay more for what they have, but they want to stop global warming, I mean global cooling,, oh hell climate change.  This is all for the better they say.  But in the mean time, I will spend less, not buy as many big macs, and hold off on that new car purchase.  To hell with the economy, we must support the polar bears, the sandhill crane, and Al "looney bin" Gore.  I'm just sayin.....