Gov. Jim Doyle wants to raise $260 million over the next two years with a peculiar tax. He expects to impose a tax on oil companies but at the same time prevent them from passing along the cost to their customers..

Laws of economics may not be as rigid as the laws of physics, but this seems to violate a fundamental principle: When costs of production and distribution rise, prices rise. When the state increases the tax on cigarettes, for example, it expects the price to consumers to rise. In fact, that’s one of the reasons the state increases the tax — to raise the price and discourage people from smoking. The same should be expected of gasoline: If the tax rises, the price to consumers should be expected to rise.

But Doyle seems to think that since what he’s proposed is a tax on the gross receipts of fuel suppliers, not the fuel itself, it will be just the oil companies that pay, not the people who use gasoline.

“Going after the big oil companies” might have political appeal, but even oil companies have to be treated fairly in the marketplace. When the state taxes the producers or distributors of a product, it also taxes the consumers of the product.

It’s a little bit surprising that the Joint Finance Committee had enough confidence in this tax to include it in the state budget the committee approved on Friday. Two Democrats and four Republicans on the committee voted to remove the tax from the budget bill, but the other 10 Democrats on the committee voted to keep it. Now it must be approved by the full Assembly and Senate. We hope enough of the legislators have the good sense and the courage to remove this provision from the final version of the budget.