Ray,
I’m all for the gas tax. I can see it being a good idea to wean America from petroleum politics, catching up to the rest of the world, and living a cleaner life. Hey, if I could hop on a train, leave LaLaLand and find my way to San Jose in an hour, I’d do it.
On the other hand, considering that GM spent millions of dollars destroying the subway and train infrastructure after WWII, why would we expect them to rebuild the industry? It’s a conflict of interest, since the profit of the train development inevitably causes the decline of the automobile industry. Competing factions present better products. As an example, NPR has commercials touting that we have trains that can pull a ton of freight hundreds of miles with one gallon of fuel. Do you think that the fuel-efficient engine would have been built if the semi-tractor industry didn’t take away some of their profit?
Alex
Where on earth are you living??? Gas is 2.99 where I am! And I am one of those people who can’t afford to pay more. I go on errands once a week and am basically a shut in because I can’t afford to drive anywhere. And yeah, govt. isn’t gonna do squat with more money except give themselves a pay increase.
As far as going green, its a good theory but the technology is so expensive that it isn’t affordable for us working people. Increasing the gas tax will just make it more difficult for everyone to get around. (look at the airline industry) Yes, bring on more gas tax, but AFTER the alternative is cost effective!!!
Good idea but it doesn’t go far enough. It’s time to change the gas tax to a percentage instead of a fixed amount per gallon so that collections automatically increase with the increase in the cost of gas and wimpy legislators don’t have to keep voting to increase it.
Absolutely right! Cheap gas nothing more than a subsidy for the oil industry and an impediment to developing clean energy.
It is time to do something. The rich Koch brothers who are supporting much of the Tea Party rants are just trying to spread their Libertarian ideas so they can get more money for themselves.
We are WAY behind other countries in the quality and maintenance of our roads.
Of course it doesn’t help that the leaches in Washington steal from any well funded program to give pork to their home district. We need people who think about the future of this country instead of how to win their next election.
If we could have a 50 cent increase and protect it from pork, our infrastructure would improve a lot.
The federal gas tax should be inceased a few cents every quarter. This will allow people to adjust to the increasing costs over time. I am especially annoyed that diesel fuel is taxed at a higher rate then gasoline. The idiots should be encouraging the use of a more efficient fuel.
Guys Time to wise up here in the UK we pay the equivalent of $7.50 for a US Gallon the government gets loads of revenue and we get smart about what we drive and how we drive. Cars do from 40mpg to 65mpg. Oil won’t last for ever so lets use it wisely. I have a gas station and a garage so I love cars so the longer we have gas to use the happier I am
a gas tax is pretty much the same as a “sin” tax. The better we are at reducing usage, the lower the income will become. But, if we don’t do something about our crumbling infrastructure, we won,t haVe the streets and roads we need to drive one person to a car on the freeways of Boston, LA, Houston, or (name your city). Then we won’t need our cars, pickups, or SUVs.
Of course I’m writing somewhat tongue in cheek. But we seem to have lost perspective on what is important to us and what it is worth to us. We have people writing on their PC made mostly of plastic derived from petrochemicals that we should should never ever use oil again. We pay more for bottled water or milk than we do for gasoline! Put things in perspective.
Well, another year has passed and now gas is over $4.00 a gallon. I feel like the frog in the beaker. You put a frog in a beaker of water and start to heat the water. The frog doesn’t realize he is being cooked to death because the water is heated up gradually. Finally the water is boiling and froggie gets cooked. So I think, sure, let’s raise the gas tax and put the money into a fund so we can sue the gas companies and oil speculators for gouging us on gas prices.
And I might add that the $4.00 per gallon gas price hasn’t curtailed people’s driving much. So much for increasing the gas tax to force people to drive less.
$4/gallon has changed car buying habits, though, GM and others have seen a major shift to 4-cyl engines:
From the article:
“The Chevy Cruze, the compact car that GM introduced last year, is now the second-biggest selling vehicle in the automaker’s lineup, behind only its Silverado pickup truck. Cruze sales so far this year are about triple the sales of the car it replaced, the compact Cobalt.”
“Recently, rising fuel prices have led many to rethink their vehicle choice,” said Don Johnson, GM’s U.S. sales chief."
“Ford sales analyst George Pipas said this week that Ford is also showing a major shift in consumer taste toward smaller and more fuel-efficient cars as gasoline prices rise.”
“Analysts said American consumers are shifting to both smaller cars and opting for more fuel-efficient and smaller engines – sometimes with expensive options like turbocharging – when they choose to buy larger vehicles in the face of rising fuel prices.”
“Pipas said the “surprise of the year” to him is that about half of the sales of Ford’s best-selling model, the F-150 pickup truck, include V6 engines. At the beginning of the year, Ford only sold V8 engines in its F-150 trucks.”
“And at GM, April sales of vehicles with 4-cylinder engines made up 39 percent of its total, up from 27 percent a year ago.”
“GM’s Johnson said that the automaker’s first-quarter sales showed that 35 percent of retail sales were for vehicles that get at least 30 miles per gallon, compared with 19 percent two years ago.”