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Automotive News & Views How does gas at $4 and higher impact you?
2175 messages, Last post on Nov 05, 2009 at 3:05 PM
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 20, 2008 3:33 pm) You said you were glad prices went down so you could pay your fuel bill but at the same time you are suggesting we increase the price of gas at the pump? How will that effect the working poor? How will it effect people on a fixed income? How will it effect transportation? How will it effect car sales? In each case it will have a negative effect. Isn't that a bit like Marie Antonette saying if they have no bread let them eat cake? Higher fuel cost equal higher food cost and higher transportation cost. It will even increase the cost to operate local services as each service from police to fire will have to decide if they want to pay for fuel or personnel. It doesn't matter to the suppliers if we tax our fuel 8 bucks a gallon as long as someone somewhere will buy it from them. England is living proof of that. And the US is ten times more mobile than England. I don't like $4.00 fuel and I wouldn't like any politician that suggested it. In fact I would vote against any politician if they ran on a platform of increased fuel taxes. Our very lifestyle would be lowered to that of our less fortunate cousins in other parts of the world. No we have seen the effects of higher fuel prices and "none" of your suggested benefits came to pass.
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 20, 2008 7:31 pm) Oh but boaz old chum, prices were only really high for a few months. The suggested benefits were just beginning to happen when the prices dropped through the basement. A moderate tax applied over a longer period of time would produce the suggested benefits, have no doubt about it. But if you like we can also do it your way - fuel or famine.  In that case we can just wait for the next price spike to catch us unawares again. And once again we will get all in a huff pointing the finger of blame everywhere we possibly can, everywhere but the one place it should point - at ourselves. I will guarantee you one thing though, the next such spike isn't 25 years out like the period we waited between 1980 and $4 gas. It's much closer than that. |
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they say oil is now at 2004 price levels. That's when gas was $1.59. We are only 8 cents out of sync. 23 states are under $2. The final 2008 answer to what will I do if gas get's to $4 was not buy any. I had 5 vehicles with tanks I filled just prior to hurr. Ike approaching. I paid $3.57 at most. Then I rotated driving them. I got thru the $4 month and actually now that gas is $1.67, two of the vehicles were still holding that pre-Ike gas.
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Replying to: dave8697 (Nov 21, 2008 12:16 pm) 
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 21, 2008 8:03 am) Young People were not able to drive to their jobs or they were being laid off. Auto dealers were closing. You were unable to pay off your gas bill every month. And this was only for a short period of time. So tell me how things would be better if we were still paying over $4.00 a gallon because we had a $1.00 additional tax? Such a tax sounds punitive and we tossed things into a harbor for just such a tax on tea. The new secretary of finance said this is not the time to even think about taxing ourselves. Now what he will do after getting in office may be a different matter but speaking to the people before he is appointed that was his wisdom. Some in this forum have said we should be happy to pay $4 or $5 a gallon because Europe has been doing so for a long time. But there is a price to pay for that. Europe's standard of living is an average 10k less than the US, looking at the CIA world government page. So what reason would someone have for suggesting an additional 50 cent fuel tax at this time? One that could be sold to the voters. Let me ask the rest of the people in this forum. How many would like to pay an additional 50 cents to a dollar on top of your fuel prices today? How many would support such a move? |
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 21, 2008 1:50 pm) If this makes sense to anybody, and I don't know if it does tell me what you think, I believe that they could get away with raising the taxes on gas with one big factor. It could go in the reverse of the price. As the price goes up the tax would come down so that people could still afford it. For me $0.50 at $4.00 is going to be a bigger problem than $0.50 at $1.70. I couldn't say by how much it should decrease as the wholesale price increases, but that is my idea. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not dumb and I know that the arrangement above would never happen, but that is how I think it could work. Until that one condition would be worked out I wouldn't support it. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 20, 2008 3:33 pm) Well of course they would. Why do you think they would have done otherwise? We certainly have discretionary driving that can be cut back. And if gas prices do get too high, some people are literally forced to stop driving; just as the price today keeps some from owning a car and driving. So I really don't see what long-term purpose a slightly different amount of consumption makes. Making some lower income people "hurt" by paying an artificially high (beyond the road needs) is not a good idea. We should be trying to have the best lifestyle we can. If you want to suggest ways to reduce gasoline I would suggest we reduce our consumption of foreign goods - especially from China, reducing the growth of vehicles there and the gasoline they use there. My goal would be for more oil and gasoline to flow to me and this country by making and keeping the $ here - winning the global economic competition. |
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 21, 2008 1:50 pm) But why would we still be paying over $4/gallon? Right now I would be paying $2.59/gallon. And chances are that if we had had a gas tax for the last decade, we wouldn't have paid $4 any time this year. But never mind, it seems the concept of sustainability is getting lost in a rising tide of we-want-everything-as-cheap-as-possible-future-be-damned here, so I am calling it quits. But don't forget, that attitude has led to the Walmartization of America, and the extinction of most American manufacturing. Sometimes paying a little more for something now can save a lot of money and heartache down the line....
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 21, 2008 1:50 pm) If I were certain that government would use the tax money to free us from depending on foreign fuel I might be willing to make the sacrifice even though I am one of the "poor" people who would be most impacted. The trouble is I don't trust the "government" to EVER do the right thing with my taxes. I would hate to starve and sacrifice only to see some fat cat corporation or radical activist group live large on my dime. A good example is the New York State Thruway Authority. When built in the 1950s tolls were charged to pay off the bonds used to fund the project. The bonds were paid of in 1996 but the tolls remain even though by keeping them we lose millions in federal highway funds. Recently, as drivers conserved gas and drove less the Authority tried to boost tolls because "people weren't paying enough". This is the mind-set of the political class, always take more, never give up anything. Screw the public while spinning it as "for your own good". More taxes for anything? No thanks. 
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