Latest Hike at Pump Has Motorists Fuming : Gas: Some drivers filled up before nickel tax increase took effect. Others are caught unawares. Almost all ask, what can you do?

Enough, already!

That was the sentiment expressed by customers at some Orange County service stations as they were greeted Saturday morning by the federal government’s nickel-a-gallon tax increase at the fuel pump.

“I spend a lot of money on gas,” said Pedra Salcedo of Santa Ana, who commutes every day from housecleaning jobs in Newport Beach. “Now, I’m just going to have to work more.”

Salcedo, making a fuel stop at the Arco station on Fairview Street and Edinger Avenue, said she spends between $20 and $25 each week filling up her small pickup. The self-serve price for unleaded was $1.33.

“It’s terrible. We have to work so hard anyway. What can I say? One day it’s $10 (to fill up) and another day it takes $12.”

Inside the station, Julie Wong said business was booming Friday night as customers rushed to top off their tanks and beat the increase. Even with Saturday’s higher prices, Wong said business Saturday remained steady.

“I think everybody knew about the increase” Friday night, Wong said. “But sales have been good today. Maybe it’s because it’s the day after payday for some people.”

Just up the street at an Exxon station, there was more customer exasperation as Raul Saldivar plunked down $10 to pump just less than 8 gallons.

“It’s just too much!” the 28-year-old Saldivar said of the $1.35-a-gallon price. “I don’t know why this has to happen. I hope, somehow, things will get better.”

At the Mobil station on La Palma Boulevard in Anaheim, an attendant said customers are not appeased when informed that the higher prices are the result of a tax increase, not an oil price hike.

“They complain a lot,” said the attendant, who gave his name only as Ivan. “They say it’s much too expensive now. The government raised the price and not the company, but they are very, very crazy about it.”

Prices for customers who paid cash ranged from $1.35 a gallon for regular leaded gasoline to $1.37 for unleaded and $1.55 for super unleaded, he said.

Elsewhere throughout Southern California, motorists’ reaction to the new federal excise tax ranged from anger to resignation.

“The government already takes out so much in taxes,” said Tiffany Lee, 22, a model, who filled her Hyundai Sonata at an Arco station in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. “It doesn’t seem fair that they’re going after more tax money. This much more we have to pay? With the economy so slow, it makes you think there’s something wrong with George Bush.”

The new tax brings the national average of unleaded regular gas at self-service stations to $1.41 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Assn.

While pumping unleaded gas priced at $1.45 per gallon, a 33-year-old municipal bond trader from Pasadena also lamented the uneasy state of the nation’s economy, saying that her husband had just been laid off.

“He’s an investment banker, and his future job prospects look pretty (bad) right now,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. To augment the household income, she had to go back to work last week at a downtown brokerage firm after several months off.

The price hike will squeeze her family’s single income all the more, the woman said.

“I’m not happy with the tax, but what else can the government do?” she asked. “With the budget deficit so high, you can cut back, cut back, cut back only so much. It’s ridiculous to think you can balance it without raising taxes.”

The tax is estimated to generate $5 billion a year, half of which will go toward road and public transportation improvements. The other half will be used to whittle down the nation’s $250-billion budget deficit.

In Chatsworth, Kim Oswald, 28, said she went to five gas stations looking for the lowest price before stopping at an Arco station. The price for regular leaded gas: $1.27.

“Some of us are barely making it as it is,” Oswald said as she filled up a well-worn Pontiac Bonneville.

Many Ventura County motorists were not fazed by the tax hike, saying that they’ve learned to live with the steeper gasoline prices. Several people filling their tanks at a Shell station in mid-town Ventura said they could envision gas prices going to $2 a gallon.

“I’ll just keep driving,” said Nigel Thornell, 46, a medical lab specialist from Santa Barbara. “There isn’t much choice.”

Fernando Gamua, manager of Seaward Mobil in Ventura, said people initially were annoyed by a nickel-a-gallon state tax increase in August and since have accepted the escalating costs during the Persian Gulf crisis.

Still, motorists lined up Friday night at Argett Chevron in Ventura to fill up their tanks before the price hike took effect at midnight, said Josh Nudd, a station attendant.

On Saturday, “Some people were kind of upset and wished they’d come in last night,” Nudd said.

More than the extra 5 cents per gallon, motorists seemed to be dismayed at having no say over Congress’ action to increase taxes in its budget agreement. Some were upset that President Bush has not been held accountable to his campaign promises of no new taxes.

“Everything he promised he was going to do, he hasn’t followed through on,” said the Pasadena bond broker. “I’m not happy with him at all. And I’m a Republican.”

Times staff writers Sonni Efron, Christopher Pummer and Amy Louise Kazmin also contributed to this story.