How do you figure an increased gas tax will decrease poor people’s expenses? They’ve still got the same, paid for, old, less efficient car, but they have to pay much more for gas than they were, and more than if gas rose solely by the open market’s effect.
And, that brings me back to my main point - the poor can’t afford dramatically increased fuel costs, and can’t afford to change their habits, so they end up being much poorer, and I would say get effected more harshly than those more well-off.
“If they buy a car that gets better mileage”
The point was that many people have a legitimate use for such a vehicle and there is no alternative choice (e.g. farmers). You’re punishing them along with the poseurs. There are many examples of small businesses that rely on work vehicles and the economy is at a point where many cannot afford such a proposal. Everybody can cite examples of the decked out 4x4 behemouth that never sees anything but the school and mall parking lots. I just don’t believe this is the answer to that issue. Too many valid exceptions for such a broad brush.
“but the fact remains that the U.S. is consuming about twice as much oil as it is producing, and that is not a sustainable condition”
This F$%^ BBS trashed my response again and I forgot to save a copy before submitting! Oh well, here goes again…
Of course, you’re right. The oil will eventually run out. However, having lived through the 70s I have a distrust of the reported doom and gloom scenarios regarding exactly how much oil is actually left. That was nearly 40 years ago now and we’re still chugging along.
Besides, do you really think that if the US reduced consumption by 1/2 that any of the remaining consumers would do likewise? It might even have the opposite effect in that global supply prices would go down and encourage those rapidly expanding markets to grow even faster. The laws of unintended consequences can be a real b!tch.
I support reduction for one reason only, to reduce the cash flow to potentially unfriendly states or states that support those that would do us harm.
I believe we should use this time to fund research and I mean full bore research into alternatives. Trying to hold back the tide by reducing consumption globally is impossible, lulls people into to a false sense of security so they don;t take real action and ultimately will fail IMO.
I think you are making my point, I’m not talking about “running out of oil,” although that may be a legitimate concern. I’m talking about the fact that the U.S. is taking a huge economic hit by having to import that much energy every year. It is not an economically sustainable condition and it puts the U.S. at the mercy of a international energy market that they cannot control. Ultimately, the U.S. cannot control the value of their own currency. That is dangerous, much more dangerous than giving money to some hypothetical unfriendly state. This is primarily an economic problem, not an energy problem. We simply cannot afford to do nothing for a few more decades while we think about the issue.
I agree that the U.S. (and the rest of the world) should be researching alternatives, and we have been talking about it for about 40 years now. There are two major problems; we are not seriously funding energy research, and any credible alternative energy will not be cost competitive with our current cheap energy sources. The same price increase that will be required to reduce consumption will provide an economic incentive for non-governmental alternate energy research. There is no “magic bullet,” the next major energy source will not be cheaper than $100 oil, it will be more complex and more expensive, we currently use oil because it is cheap and easy. Whatever the next major energy source is, it will be expensive, controversial, and slow to implement; I do not expect to see a serious alternative to oil in my lifetime. This research is needed and it will benefit future generations, but we still have to deal with the current issues.
Yup, absolutely.
I just didn’t want somebody dropping a cherry bomb into the porcelin and then running away. The whole issue of taxation as a method of controlling gas consumption is as hot a topic as can be found. It gets to peoples’ core philosophies, their political beliefs, and their perspective on the economy and on world economic issues. It’s implementation would affect each individual in a different way, as well as affecting the overall economy.
Admittedly, perhaps sadomasachystically, I enjoy the debate.
“The oil will eventually run out. However, having lived through the 70s I have a distrust of the reported doom and gloom scenarios regarding exactly how much oil is actually left. That was nearly 40 years ago now and we’re still chugging along.”
Possibly the experts were misquoted and people only remember the headlines (e.g., Running Out of Oil). We are running out of known reserves, and that is all that can be legitimately stated. There are undiscovered reserves to be sure, but no one can tell us how much there is or how difficult (both technically and politically) and costly it will be to recover.
“…I would recommend 7 years”
I prefer to see this applied gradually. Just expanding the guzzler tax to all vehicles, even those under a certain gross vehicle weight, would be acceptable. I mention a maximum GVW in case it is preferable to eliminate obviously commercial trucks like semis from the list. Although $7700 extra on a new big rig is hardly a large increase.
“I just didn’t want somebody dropping a cherry bomb into the porcelin and then running away.”
Do I seem like a shrinking violet to you? ;^)
“The whole issue of taxation as a method of controlling gas consumption is as hot a topic as can be found. It gets to peoples’ core philosophies, their political beliefs, and their perspective on the economy and on world economic issues. It’s implementation would affect each individual in a different way, as well as affecting the overall economy.”
I know. Those are some of the reasons I brought it up.
“… I enjoy the debate.”
Me too! Let’s discuss this further! BTW, I really am serious about emailing my representatives, and I want to discuss it with you thoughtful folks to gel my opinions.
Indiana suspended their gasoline tax temporarily. I’m not sure if they re-instituted it.
Absolutely not… I’m 6’6" tall and have to have a car with real leg and head room. It’s entirely unfair and unproductive to tax people based on their heighth. Whats wrong with you people, your answer to everything is more taxes. Do you know that the government gets more money from gas sales than the oil companies make in their EXCESSIVE profits. And thats only the federal take. Include the state and local taxws and the oil profits are small by comparison. Get in your Prius and go to France or some other socialist country.
Didn’t your forefathers host the Boston Tea Party because they didn’t want to pay tax on tea?..American history is littered with revolts when the government increases taxes, indeed, you (collectively) still complain you’re taxed too much.
The issue was taxation without representation, eh?
What is it with you guys ?
Are you politicians or something ?
Too much time on your hands, sitting on your a$$es thinking up new taxes, you don’t think we pay enough taxes ? Is that it ?
A VW New Beetle can handle large people. I know someone your height that insistson driving a full size dar when he travels on business yet drives a Corolla to commute. It appears that there are several smaller cars that tall folks could drive.
"Too much time on your hands, sitting on your a$$es thinking up new taxes, you don’t think we pay enough taxes ? Is that it ? "
Nope. There are two problems. First, there is reliance on foreign oil, whether it’s Mexico, Canada or OPEC the money goes out of the country. It’s driving the value of the dollar down dramatically and increasing inflation because we live in a global economy. The second issue is the lack of responsibility we citizens take for our government and the way it runs. The deficit was likely about $160 billion last year. But that doesn’t include the “off-budget” items like social security. The off budget social security bill was almost $600 billion. That’s almost a trillion dollars of borrowing last year alone. But it’s off budget, how could it be a problem? It’s called off budget because the American public would go nuts if they saw a trillion dollar budget deficit. Does it bother you? Where will the money come from? From you and me. Now, later, whenever, the citizens pay for it. Corporations should pay for it? That’s us, too. I suggest we act like responsible, interested adults and take care of business.
What do you do while you’re sitting around, Scudder?
We shouldn’t be taxing people for the purpose of changing their behavour. If we do then let’s tax people for having unprotected sex because it can transmit disease.
We should tax to recover the ACTUAL cost of the behavour. The government takes a lot of your income and other taxes and spends them on road and bridge maintenance. So if you use teh roads and bridges alot (i.e you use a lot of gas) you pay more in tax (because each gallon of gas is taxed). The tax should be high enough to cover all the things the government is doing to support our driving habbits and our income tax should be reduced by the amount that is currently being spent on those things.
Shifting the payment for road and bridge maintenance from the general taxes we pay to a tax on teh gas we use shifts the burden onto those who use the infrastructure more - as it should be. As an added side effect - if we can see the REAL cost of our driving - we will likely find alternate ways that use less fuel.
“We shouldn’t be taxing people for the purpose of changing their behavour…”
Well, I think that ship sailed a while ago; much of the tax code is based on trying to influence behavior. Why do we have tax deductions for charitable contributions, for retirement savings, for home mortgages, etc.? We offer corporations all kinds of deductions for R&D, we don’t tax churches at all.
point taken - but I don’t believe that it’s ok to something wrong just be cause you did it before or are doing it in other places.
I believe that taxing to influence the fuel mileage of the cars and trucks we drive is legitimate. It could be an increase in the point-of-use tax (fuel tax) or a guzzler tax, as is implemented on cars but not trucks. And it might not be just to influence behavior. Our representatives in DC have little stomach for matching income and expenditures. The budget deficit last year was over $750 million. This year it will be even worse now that a recession has set in. When will the citizenry notice that our national money woes are due in large part to our deficit financing and do something about it?
So tax the car makers not the users. Tax the users for that which they have control over - their driving habbits.
“So tax the car makers not the users. Tax the users for that which they have control over - their driving habbits.”
Sure, you can do that. However, the manufacturers will simply pass the cost on to their customers (not necessarily the same customers who bought the vehicles with poor mileage).