First, the wing-nuts start rumors it’s an annual fee on ALL pick-up trucks, trying to panic the herd, knowing full well it’s a one-time excise tax. Same tactics they are using on the health-care bill…I suspect 5 years from now motor fuel will be so expensive no excise tax will be necessary to discourage gas-hog sales…There are many 3/4 ton trucks in supermarket parking lots that have never had a THING in their beds…
“Same tactics they are using on the health-care bill”
You must be referring to the fabled, non-existent “Death Panels”.
That non-issue really had some people (those who believe everything that Glenn Beck and his compadres on the Fox Faux News network tell them) in a frenzy.
Whitey, you are 100% correct!! Except for one thing…John Kerry will have no trouble getting reelected…This bill was never meant to become law. It was meant to send a message. As you can see by this thread, it is doing what it was intended to do…
$5/gallon fuel will kill the gas-hogs and $5 fuel is on its way…
This bill as it stands now would have a POSITIVE impact on you oldschool…A $2500 excise tax on NEW trucks makes YOUR truck MUCH more desirable as it carries no ownership penalty…
Aren’t there close to 2 million new full size pickups sold each year? Americans clearly like their full size pickups. I generally resent the “nudge” to get me out of getting another pickup when it comes time,messing with a mans pickup will have consequences at the ballot box. Work on making it run cleaner or better mileage,something that I could recover part of the expense by getting better mileage,because I know the technology to make it get better mileage will add to the inital cost but it will be partialy recoverable.
If this does make pickup truck ownership nearly extint, who’s suddenly going to be our long lost friend when we need to move a bunch of furniture?
An annual license fee should be based on the engine size and vehicle weight, in my opinion. Where I live it’s $72 per year for a Smart car as well as a Ford Expedition, and everything in between.
The French example is extreme because France has no oil, narrow streets and its industries don’t make V8 cars in any volume. A license fee starting at $70 for a small 4 cylinder car up to 2 liters, and then gradually increasing based on weight and engine size to reach $800 or so for a large and heavy V8 vehicle would be in line what most countries do now. And many of these countries are net EXPORTERS of oil.
Th Obama government should impose enough fuel and horsepower taxes to get the total fuel consumption down by 40%, quite possible, at which point no imports would be necessary, and the higher oil cost would encourage the development of many marginal oil fields in the US, currently ignored at $72/barrel.
In another post I stated that if the US has a trade surplus (no oil imports, no imports from China, etc), an oil and gas surplus, and global warming was not an issue, we could carry on as usual.
THANK GOD FOR THE FOX NETWORK!!!, a safe haven to turn to when we don’t want to watch an Obama informercial, or listen to a doddering old one term ex-president confuse disagreement with Obama’s policys for racism, or when we aren’t in the mood to listen to the 24 hour Obama gushfest on the rest of the channels.
Every time Obama decides we need yet another scolding sermon, Fox viewership soars.
Car rentals?
I like the idea, but there is just too much to consider. People are going to keep buying new gas-guzzlers, but they might not need them. How are we going to decide the definition of “need”?
Wouldn’t the US reducing its oil consumption by 40% cause prices to collapse, not get higher?
And of “guzzler”. I was thinking,would I pay 2500.00 more for my same truck if it got just 3mpg better mileage,probably. I do wonder what it would cost to get a non-hybrid full size pickup out of everybodys definition of a “gas guzzler”
Reducing overall fuel consumption is the only way for CO2 reduction but the other gases are down to very low levels,its just that darn CO2.
You must be referring to the fabled, non-existent “Death Panels”.
That non-issue really had some people (those who believe everything that Glenn Beck and his compadres on the Fox Faux News network tell them) in a frenzy.
There was a town meeting at one of our Senior centers just last week…The VAST majority at the Senior Center still believe that there are “Death Panels”. These people are so scared that you could show them that no where in the bill is anything about “Death Panels”…and they WON’T believe you.
Glenn Beck has done his job.
Whitey…I concur…100%. Excellent Post.
It was W who passed the first TARP bill. The republicans are just as bad as the democrats, except they give the money to corporate fat cats.
But the conservatives are far far superior at spinning then the liberals. The latest spin from the conservatives (Rush, Glen, Coulter)…state that this whole Tarp was STARTED by Obama. A ultra conservative I work with…INSISTS that W NEVER passed a Tarp bill. This guy is so brainwashed he can’t see the truth. And that there were “Weapons of Mass Destruction”.
Yup!
The truly ironic thing is that Beck and his minions are using the Big Lie technique propounded by Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, in order to convince seniors and other gullible types of the existence of “Death Panels” and other myths.
For those who are not familiar with this technique, Goebbels told his supporters to avoid small lies. In effect, his theory was that if you tell major lies and keep repeating them, they begin to take on a life of their own just from being repeated. And, there is the human tendency to think, “Gee, they surely wouldn’t lie about something that could easily be disproven, so it must be true”.
Those who are calling Obama “another Hitler” are actually falling victim to the favorite propaganda techniques of Hitler and his supporters.
Sometimes these taxes don’t mean that much.
Back in 1990 congress passed one of the dumbest laws. There was an import tax on SUV’s…HOWEVER…4door Suv’s were exempt. I bought a new 4-door Pathfinder…it was cheaper then the 2-door Pathfinder with the same features…What Nissan did then was start heavily discounting the 2-door Patfinders and the dealers were putting free-ad-ons to entice people to buy the 2-door. So by 1991 the price for the 2-door was about 3k less then the 4-door…And then congress removed the 4-door exemption.
I think the same thing may happen with this bill. Manufacturers will offer discounts…so will dealers…The price impact probably won’t be that much.
BTW…I’m NOT for this tax. I think there are other ways to achieve this objective.
I think they should just make a separate category for “work trucks”. Make it so you can buy a pickup penalty-free so long as it has manual-everything, vinyl seats, rubber floor, only AMFM, no cruise control, etc.
B.L.E. is right. This bill is going nowhere. There is a lot of profit in trucks.
Actually, the truly ironic thing about Glenn Beck is that he says whatever he is paid to say, whether or not he agrees with it. Check out this video that shows him when he was on CNN and compares that to his performance on Fox News. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-13-2009/glenn-beck-s-operation . It really makes me wonder, which one is the real Glenn Beck? Is it the one who thinks our healthcare system is terrible, or is it the one who thinks our healthcare system is the best in the world?
And of course, then we have that disturbing issue of an alleged criminal background for this man.
I personally doubt that he has a criminal past, but his steadfast refusal to deny these allegations is very troubling, to say the least.