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Automotive News & Views How does gas at $4 and higher impact you?
2183 messages, Last post on Nov 21, 2009 at 5:13 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 19, 2008 10:41 pm) Truer words never spoken. We went out last night to El Cajon to listen to a friend play his music. The place was packed where normally it would be only a handful. At the break I asked him what was the occasion? It was the City of El Cajon employees being treated to a feast including free booze. They were celebrating the increase in sales tax on this last election. So now the lucky people in El Cajon pay 8.75% sales tax and in the county we pay 7.75%. I had stopped shopping in El Cajon when they went up to 8.25%.. I will do more shopping online to avoid this kind extortion. I do not find higher taxes a reason to celebrate on the tax payers money. Adding 50 cents to our gas tax in this economy would be CRAZY. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Nov 20, 2008 5:19 am) When the history is written of this period in time, I think you're going to see it as an acceleration of the transfer of power to the government, and the transfer of wealth to the rich and powerful (politically connected). I will do more shopping online to avoid this kind extortion. I'd invite you to come over to NH to enjoy our 0% sales tax, but the high temps. each day now is only about 30F. And we don't have an income tax. And our unemployment rate in Oct was 4.1%. House prices were never in a bubble, and they have not dropped much now either. We don't have these neighborhoods where people move in for a few years, don't know each other and then are gone. Families live in the same area for many years, and you can basically leave your doors unlocked (though you don't advertise it of course). I guess we didn't put all our eggs in 1 basket, making autos and auto parts. Just bought 93-octane for $2.19 last night, though I think I'm in the more expensive part of the state. |
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 19, 2008 10:41 pm) The problem with the system now is that it is unsustainable in the long term. And unsustainability leads to price spikes (hello summer 2008) and other unpleasantries. Put in a $0.50 gas tax, make it clear that from now on gasoline consumption is going to be a little, just a little, discouraged. Make people think about the lifestyle choices they are making and the gasoline they consume, and then if they still want to go ahead and waste their money its theirs to waste. Increment that tax in the next few years, eventually bring it to $1. Make it $1.50 by 2020 when the new CAFE standards are supposed to be fully in effect. Maybe more? And as far as where the money goes, well, just like you I have little faith it will be used wisely or well by the government. But for me that isn't the point of a tax like this, and what if it IS used well? What if they steer some towards better road maintenance or programs to reduce fuel consumption? Then you would have a win-win.  Oh and by the way? The problem with the political system we have now is that politicians are much TOO concerned with being popular, rather than doing the things that need doing. So no, I am not.
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Replying to: kernick (Nov 19, 2008 1:51 pm) Saying something with zero basis in fact is not similar AT ALL to the GW issue. There are scientists and facts behind GW. I can read an annual temp trend as well as the next guy. I can read the stories about polar ice melting. Those are facts. There are still unknown REASONS for the warming, but the warming ITSELF is a fact. What those guys said in the post I mentioned here has zero basis in FACT and are 100% wacky opinions. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 20, 2008 6:50 am) But lets suppose that in some other universe your suggestion was passed and the government got up to an extra dollar tax on fuel. Once they got used to the money and budgeted for it what happens when we use less fuel? Now let say such a tax is put into the budget and we are three years down the road. Someone releases a viable EV for commuting and people cut using gas by 50 percent. What will the government do to cover the short fall? You guessed it they will raise other taxes. Let me give an example you can see. If you remember when California passed the plan to have a state lottery? They told the voters that 33 percent would go to fund public schools. Well the lottery passed and they did send 33 percent to public schools, however they cut back state funding by close to the same amount and attached strings to lottery funds that the schools didn't have before. You couldn't use the money for teachers or any long term programs. Schools in California are now in worse shape financially than they were before they got the lottery money. And Cafe standards or worthless, have always been worthless and will always be worthless. No domestic company has ever been fined for missing CAFE standards even with trucks and SUVs. And now they are telling congress that CAFE standards are a reason to take Taxpayers money and bail them out. No my friend, higher fuel takes would not make $4.00 gas easier for me to swallow.
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 19, 2008 7:00 pm) S. Fl raised all my property taxes during the bubble. Now that it has burst, they want to retain the same government income. You expect a County Beaurocrat to give himself a pay cut after three boom years of 10% raises. Hell No. My taxes are trickling down. The gov't already gets most of the cost of fuel as tax. If the gov't wants to set mileage standards then they should pay the bailout of the Big 3. Be involved or don't. Pick one. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Nov 20, 2008 5:19 am) Two examples pop into my head right off. The death tax was repealed, at least until 2011. (and Mass. just voted against eliminating the state income tax by about 2 to 1; go figure). The other example is more applicable to this discussion. Schwarzenegger beat Gray Davis when Davis raised the car tax in California. Schwarzenegger repealed it. Of course, now he wants to reinstate it. We just voted to double our fee in Ada Co. to pay for more sidewalks and bike paths. Oh yeah, when gas prices shot up, Alaska rolled back the eight cent a gallon gas tax for, iirc, six months. Gas was $2.79 in Anchorage yesterday. |
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Replying to: steve_ (Nov 20, 2008 8:14 am) Tax fuel and you are putting a nail in our economy as was just demonstrated by higher fuel prices and the effect this year. If it hurt because of speculation it will hurt just as much through taxes. The only difference is taxes will never fall off as quick as the fuel prices have. How do I know? My property taxes didn't drop just because property values dropped over the last two years. And believe me property in southern California has dropped a lot. $4.00 gas is bad enough, adding extra taxes for no other reason than to tax us would be even worse.
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 20, 2008 9:06 am) Tax fuel and you encourage us to wean ourselves off imported oil. Last year we did a road trip to NM for Thanksgiving and paid the $3.6x a gallon. This year we may head to Oregon and I'll try to cram the car full of Idaho gas. Filling up at $2 is nice - pumping it yourself is nicer, even if OR is a few cents cheaper.  The gas price makes it a bit easier to decide whether to go or not, but isn't the biggest factor. |
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 20, 2008 8:09 am) But boaz, this is a false premise. Why did oil companies feel they could endlessly jack up prices, and speculators feel they could mine those prices for profits? Because oil producers know they could always count on gas consumption increasing. Because gas consumption "always" increases. But if you had a tax, one that went up incrementally every year, it wouldn't. It might stay flat, or even go down little by little. And guess what happened this year when gasoline consumption in the U.S. decreased little by little. The floor fell out of oil prices (I am talking about the period before the global economy went bust and oil prices fell so spectacularly). I know it's always tempting to take the cheapest route, and hope things will "work out" so that your choice of paths has no negative consequences down the line. Oil consumption is one of those times when the cheapest route won't work out. The last quarter century proves it conclusively. Luckily, there are choices, and one of them is that we can pay a little more now and ease into that more expensive future, avoiding fresh shocks like the $4.50 gas we had this summer. There will be those, of course, who feel that more expensive future is somehow avoidable by conducting business as usual. To them I say, you are in denial of the global nature of the oil economy (and every other facet of the economy), and the current state of oil extraction.
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