So why have they backed off and allowed Gore to slip out of the noose? Two words: Bud Shuster.

Bud's the Transportation Committee czar in Washington. He passes out billions of dollars of road pork every year. It turns out that Bud believes exactly what Al Gore believes. He says that cutting the gas tax would be a "feel good proposal that would not solve the problem." Sounds exactly like the Vice President.

The next thing you know the Republican leaders are echoing the Gore-Shuster spin: the gas tax is not the problem here. Wrong. High gas taxes are a big part of the problem. The federal gas tax is 18 cents a gallon, up from about a nickel twenty years ago. In many states about 40 percent of the cost drivers pay at the pump is not for petroleum, but taxes. What's worse, the congressional Republicans are now refusing to repeal a tax that not one of them actually voted for when Bill Clinton proposed it in 1993. Back then they mercilessly savaged their Democratic colleagues for this tax hike on the backs of working class Americans. Now they are as eager as the Dems to spend the extra $5 to $7 billion a year that the Gore-Shuster tax brings in for highway pork.

Give Al Gore the first knock out punch in the presidential sweepstakes. He has flattened the congressional Republicans who are down on their backs for the 8 count. This doesn't bode well under a President Gore scenario. We also now know who runs Congress. It isn't Denny Hastert. It isn't Dick Armey. It isn't Trent Lott. Ladies and Gentlemen, the acting Speaker of the House is: Bud Shuster, arguably the biggest spender in the history of the party.