I'm no economist, but here's the scenario as I see it. If gas is $5 per gallon, people are still going to buy it. So let's say we suspend the gas tax for now and give everyone a temporary break. People will still buy gas, and probably more of it, and the price will go up to the current level or even higher eventually. So after a short relief, we would be paying the same amount, only the money would be going to the oil companies instead of the government. Nothing changes and we pay more and more for the opportunity to pollute the earth.

Scenario 2: We go ahead and add more taxes on the gas, to the point where the growth in demand is slowed. Now people suffer in the short term, but prices level off and the government has a large surplus of revenue it can spend on developing alternative fuels, which are cleaner and could potentially drive down gas prices. The resulting oil markets would encourge the oil companies to invest their own dollars in alternative fuels, lest they be replaced by new energy giants.

One path hurts now, the other hurts forever. But I'm not running for president....