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Automotive News & Views Is a Higher Gasoline Tax Good Or Bad For America?
849 messages, Last post on Nov 19, 2009 at 2:22 PM
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Jan 25, 2009 7:58 pm) |
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Jan 25, 2009 7:58 pm) China and India are 2 countries that have a desire for more and more oil. They have plenty of manpower to raise security forces. The U.S. has the latest technology. I suggest an alliance, where if the people can't behave, we send the forces to make them peaceful. I had always suggested that the problem in Iraq was that every Iraqi male should have an escort for a while; anyone found out without an escort would be shot. The U.S. did not have the manpower there to prevent these bums from forming militias. If Iraq had to be emptied, and a Chinese soldier stationed every 25 yards along the entire border so be it.  As I've stated, I don't like tax increases, but I think doing nothing, and continuing our wasteful ways, will result in worse consequences than raising the tax on gasoline. When gas hit $4.00+ this summer, consumption went down what 5%? With the known amount of oil and some reasonable increases to be found, this change in consumption based on the tax increases you propose is minimal. Maybe 50 years of oil becomes 55 years. Since the future is much longer  than you can say it really makes no difference. Plus you miss the fact that reducing gasoline consumption here in the U.S. by 5% simply puts less demand on oil, lowers the price, and the global market thus buys slightly more. Look before this topic gets all fired up, there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. Once it became known that oil could be burned and was so useful, the course is set to drill and use it all. The only thing that stops that is to discover a new source of energy. People of the globe will continue to use any and all fossil fuels for their comfort and enjoyment until they are exhausted (except the renewable wood). The only solutions are better solar, wind, and tidal systems, some sort of deep geothermal tapping, or fusion. Your proposal to give a rebate to the lower income is just the sort of additions to the tax code we dislike. Why not raise the minimum wage to compensate for the additional tax they pay?
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 26, 2009 6:12 am) What a gas tax is designed to do is change peoples' car-buying choices, more than change their daily driving habits. Gas is up today, it could be down next week, is what many will think during price spikes like the one last summer. OTOH, if the government imposes a gas tax, people know gas is going up and staying UP, and the next time they are car-shopping they will be thinking "I need a vehicle that is 20% more fuel-efficient than my last one, because gas is up 20% or more for GOOD". And BTW, while I am all in favor of it being revenue-neutral, I don't think it should just be one gigantic federal give-back to the states - the gas tax hasn't kept pace with inflation for more than 20 years. An immediate increase of some sort is needed just to keep pace with the costs of road maintenance and repair. The 40-year life expectancy of the concrete surfaces of all those interstates built in the 50s and 60s has already reached or is just reaching its end. That's a lot of repaving that's needed, folks, and it won't be free. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Jan 26, 2009 8:30 am) Not to worry. Obama has an extra $$Trillion set aside to fix all the roads and bridges. We can eliminate the gas tax completely... 
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Replying to: nippononly (Jan 26, 2009 8:30 am) people know gas is going up and staying UP, and the next time they are car-shopping they will be thinking "I need a vehicle that is 20% more fuel-efficient than my last one, because gas is up 20% or more for GOOD". As I said before I don't think MOST new car shoppers care much if the gas-tax is going up $0.10/year. The average price of a new car is about $25K right? Maybe $20K right now after all discounts in this market. It is not the average person making $40K/year who is buying new cars. The people buying new cars are typically upper middle class and businesses. A person making $75,000+/year really isn't concerned if gas cost $1.00 or $2.00 or $5.00 more per week. It is the person who buys the used car making $40K/year who cares! But they do not make the decisions on what is bought initially, thus they do not control what type of vehicles are on the used market. Vehicle choice is mostly from the better-to-do who care less about these small gas tax increases! If you are concerned about small increases in gas costs, then certainly after all we've been thru with people getting loans they shouldn't take ... the system really shouldn't allow them to buy a new car. A new car is such an extravagence and waste of money, that if you can't pay cash for it, I would really question whether you should buy it.
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 26, 2009 9:38 am) Heh, I think that might depend on how many boat, 4-wheeler, car and mortgage payments they have. If you want to discourage the burning of gasoline for transportation, raising the taxes would be an efficient way of doing it. And the bump in tax revenues until people really quit driving or switched fuels would pay for a lot of bridge and road repair. |
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Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No? Didn't think so. Bottom line . . we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember. Ready? It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate. The Department of Energy was instituted 8-04-1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. HEY, PRETTY EFFICIENT, HUH? AND NOW IT'S 2008, 31 YEARS LATER, AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR, THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY 'WHAT WAS I THINKING?' Ah yes, good ole beauocracy. And now we are going to turn the Banking system over to the congress? God Help us.
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Replying to: euphonium (Jan 26, 2009 11:54 am) Actually with the credit I got up there with my furnace upgrade rebate, and the tax credit I got a couple of years ago with my more efficient water heater, I've saved thousands, thanks to those "bureaucrats." |
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 26, 2009 9:38 am) Yes, but you know what they DO affect? Resale values. If small fuel-efficient cars retained way more of their value than trucks and SUVs, don't you think that's one important factor that would play out in peoples' minds when they select a new vehicle? Just look at how hard-hit the SUV resale values were last summer, and that was with gas at $4/gallon for less than 6 months. And BTW, there are plenty of middle-income people who WOULD care about a gas tax if it started at an increase of $0.50 - that would mean an additional $35/month in gas expense, and $420/year. That's enough to get people to add it to the list of things they consider when purchasing a new vehicle, especially if they know it will continue to increase slowly. Lastly, say what you will about what SHOULD be the case, but there are plenty of people in the $30-40K annual income bracket buying new cars, even now. I know two that have purchased within the last 3 months. For both, gas cost was a priority in the purchasing decision, one went with a Corolla and the other with a Mazda3 2.0.
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