Proposed 56.2 MPG Fleet Average Required by 2025 Model-Year . . . Good Idea?

General Discussion
41

“What they don’t realize is that if a business gets taxed heavily for buying a large truck because they need one, the customer will get charged more because of it. That $100 job to cut down a tree now becomes $150 or $200 to recover the added cost.”

I think that is an exaggeration. Let’s say someone pays the maximum of $7700 on their new truck for a new gas guzzler tax and they keep it 10 years. That’s $770 per year, or about $3 per day. That’s hardly enough to add $50 to $100 to a job. And that’s for a new truck; a used truck would not be subject to a guzzler tax. Let’s say someone buys that nice, new F150 6-cyl that gets 18 MPG combined gas mileage and drives 20,000 miles per year for work. Without additional taxes, he’ll pay $3900 for gas, or about $15.50 per day. Taxes would have to be 3 times today’s gas price ($10/gal) to justify the $50 per job increase or $100 per job if they guy works half the time. All this says it’s a small increase in cost to the customer, and they should be able to pay it. Of course, most people won’t do this kind of evaluation and would buy the hundred bucks per job stuff. What a great way to make more money!

42

Okay, couldn’t help but contributing here.

My viewpoint is unique, no doubt, I drive a taxi (approx 150mi avg/ day) and own some rental properties. Our company fleet is mostly minivans, dodge products most of which have a 3.3 liter engine, some with 3.8s or the small 4cyl 2.5ltrs, I would guess that as a fleet (approx 40 cabs) we avg 12-15 mpgs…you can do your own math to figure out what each driver pays for gas everyday, and of that amount, I don’t know how much of the fuel cost is tax. The company owns the cabs, drivers rent them by the day and pay for gas out of our own pockets. I believe that means that the company gets the federal mileage deduction, not me. As I see it I am paying a significant % of my income to the government, both state and federal, before facing the income and FICA burden at years end.

Now, even though god only knows how many homes have faced foreclosure, somehow the property tax burden has increased over 5 years ago, ironically the amount I paid in property tax last year was almost exactly what I posted as a loss for my business (the loss was mostly due to replacing roofs on two buildings in one year)…the cost to have those roofs replaced (or any other work done) has definitely increased because of the cost of fuel, anyone want to make a more realistic guess about what a one tone truck loaded with tools and supplies pulling even a small trailer would get around town? Less than 10mpgs…unless its diesel, in which case the price of the vehicle would be more of a factor.

My friends that own contractor businesses have 4 (or more) trucks in order to keep up with the jobs on different ends of town (mostly stil urban sprawl here in corn country) that means they have a significant fuel burden to bear as well. And they drive more than 20,000 miles a year, that’s not even 500 miles a week. That cost always gets passed down to the end consumer. Just like someone else said, if diesel were $10/gal, we wouldn’t be able to afford groceries from the grocery store, has anyone else noticed how expensive food has gotten in the last 5 years?

The short of it is this: many low income people (such as myself) pay a significantly higher amount of tax than their federal income tax, we shouldn’t be punished for trying to make something of ourselves to the best of our abilities. I have never gotten a tax refund of any kind, I receive no assistance (food stamps, whatever) of any kind, I have no children to go to the schools that I pay property tax for…with so many complicated factors to consider, I don’t see flat tax as a solution, because it effectively hurts (young or poor) people that are just starting out more than those that already have money.

I hope you can understand how complex the tax issue really is from this tiny snippet of another man’s existence.

43

As for the original question (soory about all that) I want better mileage, other people probably do too, but from an economics standpoint, I am better off keeping the car I already have in good running order on the road as long as possible. Since the purchase price of a new car would be approximately 20 times what I spend in fuel for my personal car each year. If enough people demand better mileage (or any other feature) the manufacturers will provide it (or at least should want to). No government involvement needed. But that might be me being a little too idealistic…I have been warned that I have issues with that.

44

" Agator82 June 29 Report
The extreme poor are not paying tax anyways, and neither are most people making less than $60,000 a year. "

Where are you getting that second part? That’s nonsense.

45

jtsanders June 29 Report
"CAFE limits are calculated using the old EPA test methods"

How can we calculate the old EPA mileage used for CAFE calculations? It would be interesting to check a few more cars. You tossed out a few numbers, but did not say how you arrived at them.

Jtsanders -

I don’t know of any place to find the numbers for each specific vehicle that are actually used for CAFE calculations - I’ve only found the overall fleet averages according to CAFE methods (that’s where I got the 29.5 mark that was hit in 2003). The 0.8 and 0.9 multipliers are just general rules of thumb that get you in the right ballpark.

Here is a presentation from Hyundai, though, that shows how the Sonata counts as 34.4 mpg when the sticker is 26 mpg, and the Elantra counts as 44.4 mpg when the sticker is 33 mpg

46

I am amazed how many people imagine the government thugs can do a better job of running this country than the citizens can. Where? Where?

47

“I am amazed how many people imagine the government thugs can do a better job of running this country than the citizens can. Where? Where?”

I hate to tell you this, but the government is us. The President, duly elected by us citizens, brought up the subject. Don’t confuse the bureaucrats with the elected officials if that’s what you are doing. And maybe you shouldn’t dis bureaucrats at all. The last time one became an oppointed or elected official, he became universally accepted - the only Secretary of Defense retained by one part as they replaced the other. That would be Robert Gates.

48

Nomatter. To achieve that, the cars will end up being so expensive none of us will be able to buy one anyways. They’ll be made of carboninium and unobtainium and the electric motors will be run off of matrices of 50,000 cells. The cell packs will be so expensive that you’ll have to buy the car and lease the battery pack.

You think I’m kidding? There’s already a material used by Bugatti in the $1.25M Veyron SuperSprt that’s been dubbed carboninium (or something like that) and the lease-the-battery concept is already being discussed as a way to make EVs afordable.

JT, making excuses for redicuulous mandates from government regulatory agencies by saying “the government is us” doesn;t “wash”. We’ve had this discussion before.

49

“You think I’m kidding?”

No, I don’t. As I said up at the top of this thread, expect a Camry that gets 56 MPG to cost about $50,000 in 2011 dollars.

And I made no excuses for anyone. I said that irlandes comment was off-base. The civil servants do what they elected officials tell them to. The government is run by elected officials. Think not? There is nothing an elected official likes better than publicly berating a civil servant. It’s absolutely free, and it gets great play back home. There are no bad consequences for the elected official at all. Even if he was off-base, enough home-folks will be pleased that it’s always a win.

50

In “theory” the government is “US”…but not in practice.

Ever hear of Lobbyists??? The reason the insurance industry and big-oil and utility companies spend BILLIONS every year on lobbyists is because it works. “We the People” doesn’t have the same meaning after 200 years.

51

JT, I essentially agree with Irlandes. There are many among us who believe that the solutions to all the world’s problems can come from “the government”. The common term used to be “liberals”, but now it’s “progressives”. Many of these are educated, intelligent, well-meaning people, but I disagree with their philosophy.

Laws and budgets are made by those we elect, or more accurately they’re often written by lobbiests, major corporations with vested interests, and special interest groups and legislator’s names attached to them. The regulations written to operationally enact the laws are written by bureaucrats. Civil servants, the bottom of the food chain, then have to enforce the regulations. There can be and often are huge gaps between tha actual laws and the regulations enforced. As a glaring example, the EPA recently acquired the Supreme Court’s “blessing” to move forward with CO2 emissions regulations although CO2 is not a regulated emission in the Clean Air Act.

Which brings to the forefront the Supreme Court, a group of nine unelected officials, as lawmakers. The do create law by precedent. It would be naieve at this point to think they do not. And frankly, not only are they not elected, they’re nominated and confirmed now based solely on their philosophies and their level of activism. Should an individual or an entity believe the can effect federal law via a Supreme Court advocacy, and they have the resources to do so, they can simply file with a federal court and if they lose appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is an activist group. If they like the appeal and bellieve they can affect (enact) federal law to support their philosophies, they can elect to hear the case and establish law. They answer to no voter. At no point in the background of any Supreme Court justice has any of them ever answered to a voter. One has never even been a judge or tried a case. They’re totally unelected advocates.

Yes, the bureaucrats are “bullies”. And no, they are not elected by us. And, as demonstrated by the recent Supreme Court decision on CO2 regulation, they no longer even need to have a law to enable them to enforce by force regulations that they themselves write.

I also agree with Irlandes that examples of bureaucrats and the regulations they create successfully solving a problem are few and far between. For that matter, examples of our elected officials solving a social or economic problem are few and far between.

I’ll end here, because my followon argument would involve the Consumer Reinvestment Act of 1977 and how it planted the seeds of destruction in the economic community.

Sorry, but I agree with Irlandes that thiose who believe the bully government can do a better job of running the country are wrong. And I agree with the term “bully government”.

52

mountainbike, you amaze me sometimes. :slight_smile:

First, you’re ranting against an activist Supreme Court, when the court has leaned strongly to “conservative” activism in most cases. But then you rant against the CRA, which leans the other way. I can’t figure you out! :slight_smile:

As for the CRA, it is a convenient target, but receives FAR too much attention. CRA never required banks to give out loans to underqualified customers - it required them to offer loans to qualified customers anywhere they did business - so a person with the same credit score, income, etc, would be able to get a loan under the same terms no matter where they were… in other words, no refusing to give out loans to qualified buyers in low-income areas.

If you actually look at the loans that went bad, a small percentage even went through institutions that were regulated by CRA. The vast majority were from unregulated sources.

The real problem came from a general lack of qualified buyers - by about 2003, most people who truly could afford a mortgage had one or owned their own home, but credit was still ridiculously easy to come by. Furthermore, foreign investors, flush with cash, saw MBSs as an easy safe way to earn some money, and dumped ludicrous amounts of cash into the market. So largely unregulated brokers and sources would write up a mortgage that was bogus and risky - but they knew that they would have no trouble selling them by packaging them up into garbage, overrated bundles. Nobody cared what they wrote up because somebody was there to buy it. THAT is where you get most of the bad loans from - that behavior spiked housing prices, and the collapse then brought down other loans with them. Overall, the % of failed loans from Fannie/Freddie/CRA are well below the national averages… so blaming them for all the woes is a little silly…

53

I agree with Mike. There is “we the people” then there is “WE THE PEOPLE” when money is involved. It’s amazing how many more rights you have when you as a corporation are able to make the contributions to campaign funding.

54

“So largely unregulated brokers and sources would write up a mortgage that was bogus and risky - but they knew that they would have no trouble selling them by packaging them up into garbage, overrated bundles.”

That was only part of the problem…

What someone at Chase bank figured out was…Take a NOT-SO-GOOD mortgage…and split it up in to several parts. Then bundle some of those parts with other good mortgages split-up-parts…then you’ll be able to sell ALL your mortgages as high quality low-risk mortgages…GREAT for the banks…LOUSY for the taxpayers who ended up paying BILLIONS for this mess.

55

"Yes, the bureaucrats are “bullies”. "

I disagree with name-calling. Just because someone disagrees with how another does his job or even that the job exists at all is not a reason to resort to insulting epithets. That is what I had in mind. When people resort to that behavior, it says uncomplimentary things about them.

56

MikeInNH -

You’re absolutely correct.

That bundling combined with an excess amount of cash chasing investments improperly labeled as extremely safe is far more at fault than the small number of CRA regulated loans that went bad.

57

Eraser, the CRA was passed to eliminate “redlining” by require the banks to create access to credit for those who were living in areas designated as low income areas. Redlining was a practice whereby lending institutions created “redlined” low income areas the residnts of which were immediately disqualified for mortgages.

Part of the effect was the development of creative financing ways to qualify underqulified applicants. Part of that was using tools like ARMs and then bundling the high risk loans in with lower risk loans for sale of the secondary market.

The thinking was that credit availability would create a more robust economy. What happened was that the boost to the housing market created price inflation. That caused new loans to have to be even greater risk. The problem then built on itself.

So, you consider the recent decision on the regulation of CO2 by the EPA, even though such regulation is unsupported by law, to be a conservative leaning? Elana Kagan, do you consider her conservative? Do you believe her actions as Dean of Harvard Law School in refusing access to military recruiters because of her views on “don;t ask don’t tell” in violation of federal law to be conservative? Sonia Sotomayor, you consider her conservative?

Sorry, but my rants are consistant. They’re against an ever growing federal government usurping individual and state’s rights, as well as the government’s out-of-control regulatory beauracracies. I believe the Constitution was written with an eye toward preserving our individual rights and liberties, and the states’ rights clause toward ensuring that those authorities not granted to the branhes of the federal government specifically by the constitution be retained by local governing bodies (states).

You may disagree with my rants, but they’re not inconsistant.

JT, IMHO “name calling” is applying a label to an individual. Using the term “bully” to describe the collective behaviors of a large, IMHO out of control, group isn’t. I should point out that the term was one selected by someone with whom I was agreeing, not choosen by me myself. But I consider it as good an adjective as any and still agree with it.

58

Not to stop a good discussion, but regarding the 56 mpg requirement - it could easily result in cars using MORE gas overall, because folks will hang on to their older low-mpg cars instead of buying new but expensive high mpg cars. Kind of like how overall deaths would increase when it was mandated that all infants had their own airplane seat - families drove more, which cost more lives.

And there will be major fines starting soon for makers missing their CAFE targets, to the point that the German luxury makers are complaining it’ll put them out of business in the US.

59

“
Sorry, but my rants are consistant. They’re against an ever growing federal government usurping individual and state’s rights, as well as the government’s out-of-control regulatory beauracracies.”

There are certain things I want the government to regulate…and there are many areas where it’s gotten completely out of control. But many areas…without regulation or at least oversight…many big businesses would run right over us…

60

Texases, you may be right. Not only that, but the secondary and tertiary effects on the economy of forcing mileage to the point where the average working Joe can no longer afford a new car (and inflationary effect on used car prices) will probably drag the economy down even more. A scenerio like that cannot be good for the employment picture.

By the way, it’s good that you’re getting us back on track. That “good discussion” is perhaps more appropriate for an economics forum, even though the original question was somewhat political in orientation.

Mike, I can’t argue that oversight regulation is important. It’s when and where it goes beyond protecting helpless potential victims from the unscrupulous where it upsets me. In too many cases it even protects the unscupulous from the helpless victims. I offer you the (unsuable) credit reporting industry as an example. They can destroy lives and are protected by law from being sued.
And, of course, the TSA.