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A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339589,00.html)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2008_FEH_in_the_city.jpgFOX News - March 19, 2008

Gas prices continue to skyrocket, yet there has been little change in vehicle choices or driving habits. Another fifty cents might finally push us over :( -- Ed.

A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support policies that would reduce greenhouse gases. But when it comes to paying for it, it's a different story.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wants to help cut consumption with a gas tax but some don't agree with the idea, according to a new poll by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

The poll, scheduled to be released on Thursday, shows 48 percent don't support paying even a penny more, 28 percent would pay up to 50 cents more, 10 percent would pay more than 50 cents and 8 percent would pay more than a dollar.

"I don't want to pay more, I don't think anyone wants to," said Karen Deacon, a motorist.

"I think that wouldn't make any sense," said Frankie Hoe, a motorist. "Ugh ... who's making the money from all this and where is that money going? Is it going to go green? I don't see any green things anywhere."

The automobile is the nation's biggest polluter; Americans use more gas than the next 20 countries combined... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339589,00.html

Count me in the 8% that would pay $1 more. The quote from the Center on Public Policy Research makes no sense. The feeling there is that this would make no long term change in usage is ridiculous. I mean how can someone think that - you have to assume that people are so addicted to their FSPs that they can't change no matter what the price.

Standard fare for the D's. They want to tax the crap out of everything.

Standard fare for the D's. They want to tax the crap out of everything.

Too true. That cost would also filter down and make everything go up in price.

Too true. That cost would also filter down and make everything go up in price.

Exactly! :mad:

You mean like what happens every time the minimum wage is raised? :p

I'm always concerned about what happens to the tax money -- I never seem to see the results I'm promised when I get a new tax increase. :(

Well, we can tax it and help pay off the national debt, or we can not tax it and let the money line OPEC's pockets instead; the latter is the most likely result.

I'm surprised a MI rep is doing this, given the US auto mfr's headquarters. Gas taxes are political suicide, particularly in MI.

If taxing politically incorrect behaviour worked, us British would be the happiest and healthiest in the world. But we're some of the most miserable and porky.

Mr Himmitch is correct. It will only increase the cost of living. You don't want everything to be twice as expensive as it is in the UK.

Ever get the feeling your on a party bus heading for a cliff? Your only one that seems remotely concerned about the fact that it will smash the bus to smithereens? Maybe it's just me.

11011011

Well, we can tax it and help pay off the national debt, or we can not tax it and let the money line OPEC's pockets instead; the latter is the most likely result.

I'm surprised a MI rep is doing this, given the US auto mfr's headquarters. Gas taxes are political suicide, particularly in MI.

As much as taking (or throwing) more money is a typical Democratic response to an issue, I have to agree with them here. I'd rather get the $$ here than keep sending it to biuld island palaces in Dubai. Maybe, just maybe, we also wouldn't need to spend enormous sums of $$ to make all our freeways the 8-10 lanes needed here in the metro Chicago area to ease congestion. Finally, a good idea from Michigan.

I could go with a $0.50 increase on gasoline tax if there were a corresponding program to send me a payment every year for each of my fuel efficient vehicles, and to send a large tax bill to owners of FSP's. My incentive checks could easily be financed by collection of gas-guzzler taxes. The gasoline tax itself should go to road and bridge work, and paying off government debt.

Peope cry and throw fits over an increase in gasoline taxes of 50 cents. How much has gasoline gone up in price the last two years? $1.50?

Harry

I support a tax up front on gas guzzlers, but never, never on gasoline. Count me in on the group that refuses to pay even one cent more. That just further drives the working classes into the hole while richer people get a pass because hey, they can afford it. Companies with bottom lines, ordinary drivers, and especially independent truckers will be annihilated by higher gas prices.

It's just another example of the Democrats wanting to tax the **** out of everything so everyone's poor - and then when that happens, the poor get on the welfare rolls just like the Democrats want them to, so they're hopelessly dependent on the government - and then inclined to vote Democrat so they continue to get their government checks (without realizing the Democrats put them in this situation).

Well if I follow Lester Brown's idea of an annual increase of gasoline tax of $0.30 over ten years in 10 years the gas tax will be up $3.00. Current combined usage by me and the wife is 2 gallons a day or 730 gallons a year. This new tax at it's highest will add $2190 a year to my taxes, but Lester says my income tax will be reduced by an equal amount.

Where is the pain if my taxes remain the same? I already pay the Feds $8000+ a year. Seems only those that pay little or no federal taxes will suffer.

A system that limits the deductability so that reducing consumption actually leads to less taxes gives a better incentive.

Hi All:

___Let me add a few of my own thoughts …

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/debtiv.gif
National Debt

___Everyone here will have to eventually pay this off or you will not be getting your SS checks in the manner promised the last 50 years as the surplus goes to hide this monstrosity and it is still growing exponentially. This turns out to ~ $31,000 for every man, woman and child in the US today with interest. You can tax me now or later.

___As oil climbs, the price we pay for it goes up which increases our trade deficit and the $ falls which causes us to pay even more for oil … Simple negative feedback at work here. There are still people purchasing FSP’s at $3.50 per gallon. Every 15 gallons that goes into the FSP tank is 15 gallons that goes out the window and drives the price of gasoline/diesel that much higher. If we want the cheap fuel even with a gasoline tax, we have to be driving fuel efficient vehicles and that is most certainly not the case currently. It is time to begin looking at those in the FSP’s (my wife for one :rolleyes:) causing the problem, not a $0.50/gallon tax.

___Whether a tax on gasoline like this would work for debt repayment or whatever else the politicos say it would go for is not the point. Dan hit it on the head. We are on the bus heading off a cliff and most concerned about the bus cost after smashing on the rocks below. Hello?

___We must reduce the nation’s fuel consumption immediately and in ever increasing swaths. We are already down almost 3,000 Civilians and over 4,000 soldiers plus .5 Trillion $’s in expenditures over the last 5 years over the damn stuff. The world is about to or has already peaked and we will be looking at some seriously troubling times as the prices go higher due to simple supply rather than Joe Q. and Suzy Q. driving FSP’s and in an inefficient manner because they are still holding on to an impossible dream. If a $0.50 tax hike prices the bottom end of the populace off the street, is it better to do that now rather than wait until there are actual shortages where nobody moves and the economy really goes to hell in a hand basket?

___It is our choice that put us in the situation we are now in. It is time for us to take responsibility for those choices and burning our men and woman up in the hell called the Middle East so we can continue to burn 20 MBD is ludicrous.

___A tax hike like this should generate no revenue over the next 5 years as more purchase the fuel efficient vehicles now instead of scrambling for them later after it’s to late. This is the stick part of the game and we American’s need a good hard kick in the pants given the irresponsible way in which we have consumed the world’s resources and to be damned with our future let alone the future of anybody else.

___Europe … High fuel costs with $4.00 per maybe 5 years ago and guess what they were driving. I can name 20 vehicles with Prius like FE over there. Here in the US? Just 1 and beyond the three or four at the top of the list, the rest are absolutely pathetic :angry: The Big 2.5 offers what, 30 mpg tops here at $3.25 per whereas in Europe, they have been offering 50 + mpg vehicles for the last 10 + years!

___Let us reiterate. Add $0.50 gas tax and hopefully that is enough to drive everybody towards Prius like vehicles. If it does, the cost of fuel goes down or at least doesn’t rise nearly as fast as it is with the status quo. At the same time giving us a little more time to move to PHEV/EV based local transportation system. If not, fuel will continue to rise faster than we can swap out the fleet of vehicles to something far more sustainable until we have driven off the cliff with all of us aboard the bus we are all so worried about getting smashed.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Actually Wayne, we don't have to give the government more, they could also spend less. I really wish we could make a major impact. Govenments need to be in the business of governing, not building museums, statues, or other art. Not pushing their personal interests over those of others. Not taking from the poor to over-feed the rich.

I'm not the most optimistic person. Seeing the gambling measures here pass so that their would be extra funding for the schools. What? We didn't say "extra" funding...we said funding. We are taking away the money we used to give them & making them entirely depending on the money earned by gambling taxes (with all the ebbs & flows they give us). So, I'm not willing to give extra money to the govenment because I'm using gas while they give money to the oil companies to produce it. That's not right. I wouldn't even be happy if all those new tax dollars went to green, if it meant that it was replacing the old green money so it can go do other frivilous and often dirty things.

However all that said, I agree that at some point we are going to have to give more or receive less. And I have in the past put forth that same idea (I didn't think of it and neither did he), and feel that we should tax the stuffing out of gas to help push it off market. But will it be like IL state gas taxes where they were "deleted" when the economy had a sour time to help it along, or are we going to be strong and all but ban gas sales in the US?

Final note...those taxes should be based on total sales of gas, so as gas use goes down, gas taxes go down. At that point most people are transitioning away from gas and we can stop putting the screws to it.

50 cents it too low

Give higher credits for business taxes to offset 100% of 50 cent tax.

Do it now :flag:

Europe … High fuel costs with $4.00 per maybe 5 years ago and guess what they were driving.

Higher taxes also help to damp the percentage changes from market prices. A market-driven buck increase here is a big deal, but not nearly as much in Europe where fuel is already heavily taxed. Guess whose currency is faring better as a result in these days of triple-digit oil prices. :(

The gas tax debate goes back to at least the 1970's - see From 1990: The Second-Best Way to Save Gas (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9407)...it's saying raising the CAFE standards it the best way after a gas tax. Anyone notice how many gas guzzlers have been up for sale lately? It's a testimony as to how price can change behavior - test people who say "I need this truck...". Price impacts every vehicle made old and new. CAFE standards only affect new vehicles.

Think for a moment if there was no government regulation on fuel economy at all. the average car might get 12 or 15mpg instead of 20 - we import about 10 million bbls daily. For every 1mpg difference, that's probably a million bbls....do you really prefer sending the money to Iran and Venuzela?

We would have been better off years ago to steadily raise the gas tax (with a proportionate decrease in income tax). The SUV boom of the 1990 would likely have been avoided and the resulting pain in Detroit.

Speaking of govenment regulation, anyone remember the Hummer write-off?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/debtiv.gif
National Debt Ahh, the national monetary policy makes since now. The less the dollar is worth, the less our debt is worth. Now that's actually fairly brilliant.

So if we could just get the dollar-to-euro exchange rate down to something like:

1,000,000 $ to 1 Euro, then we would have a nation debt we could start reducing in a few decades.

Gotta hand it to them Washington eggheads... they know what they are doing...

Brilliant!

11011011

We could sell gas by the liter...think how cheap that would look on the bilboard...gas $1.

And think of the fuel tanks capacity:)

We could sell gas by the liter...think how cheap that would look on the bilboard...gas $1.

And think of the fuel tanks capacity:)Your still paying the same amount of money each fillup, but hold that thought....just go metric so our friends from most parts of the world would hear FE expressed in L/100km instead of mpg...we would be talking the same language.

Wayne...can we get a new domain? www.CleanL100km.com (http://www.CleanL100km.com)? :D

Seems only those that pay little or no federal taxes will suffer.

And there you see why I do not support a single cent going towards a gas tax--I didn't pay anything last year, and my budget's already tight enough. I hypermile to save money at the pump, not to see some schmuck in Washington take it away. They're already getting 2.7 trillion in revenues - try cutting spending for a change instead.

Basic economics.

The national debt is ficticious. It is accounting only. The government does not have debt. The government creates the money. If they need more money they "print" or create more money.

The money supply is the only reason for inflation. I will repeat, it is the only reason for inflation. When the government pays off the "debt", it monetizes the debt. That means that the government prints more money to pay the bond holders.

The reason that the dollar is losing value in relation to other currencies is the debt is the money supply. Everyone knows this that is involved with economics. It is not rocket science. The "debt" is why the dollar is losing money. Economists realize that the money to cover the debt will have to be created when the loans are due. They are calculating that into the value now as if the money was already created. It is why gold, gas and other commondities are skyrocketing in realation to the dollar.

As a citizen you should safeguard yourself by not haveing your investments in dollars. It is inevitable that inflation will return. It has already started. Please take heed that your money will lose value quickley. The good news is that equity investment are essentually immune to inflation. So invest wisely.

Stuff like this really strikes a nerve with me, the last thing we need is more taxes @ the pump. We pay enough in taxes already in what do we see w/ our tax dollars? "Oh yeah, more toll roads and less maint!!".

I say lets enact the FAIR TAX already and the hell with the current tax system :woot:

A basic truth about tax reform.

When tax reform happens, taxes always go up. Be careful what you wish for.

Excel, thanks for re-introducing reality into the discussion. We all hate taxes, but the cost of deficit spending and the trade imbalance will get paid, whether explicitly or implicitly.

The one point I think you didn't explicitly mention is this: It doesn't matter how big and fuel sucking the vehicle is, it's the total fuel use. The product of the inherent vehicle efficiency and size, the way it is driven, and the amount it is driven. Taxing the FSP purchases and subsidizing the efficient cars makes little sense if people buy efficient cars but live in more "exurbs" 100 miles from work. Houses are still there long after the new cars are in the junkyard.

One of the advantages of gas taxes is that people will realize that the price increase isn't likely to come down. That drives decisions on vehicle and purchases.

I think $0.50 is too little too late. Ten years ago, it would have helped push US automakers in the right direction. Now it would help seal their doom. I'm still for it.

You mean like what happens every time the minimum wage is raised? :p
:(

Inflation has rendered minimum wage almost irrelevant over the years. Even illegal aliens won't work for minimum wage any more in a lot of places. Fast food restaurants and convenience stores routinely have to offer considerably more than minimum starting wage just to get the place staffed.

Really, gas tax would need to be raised quite a bit more than $.50/gallon just to achieve parity with the percentage of fuel price that was tax back in the 1960's. That was an era when highways didn't take forever to build, were well maintained, and there were very few toll roads.
What they really need to do is establish a percentage based fuel tax. Enough to keep the highway infrastructure well maintained.

One of the biggest questions I have is how to fund highways when a large percentage of people drive electric cars. Are all cars going to have a sealed GPS unit to calculate monthly road use fees? Are all roads going to become toll roads? Are we going to find a way to tax only vehicle use electric power?

What they really need to do is establish a percentage based fuel tax. Enough to keep the highway infrastructure well maintained.


The problem is how do you determine the percentage. Too complicated

One of the biggest questions I have is how to fund highways when a large percentage of people drive electric cars. Are all cars going to have a sealed GPS unit to calculate monthly road use fees?

Please no. The last thing I would want is the government with a GPS tracker on everyone.

Are all roads going to become toll roads?

Simple, but awful wasteful with the infrastructure required to collect the tax.

Are we going to find a way to tax only vehicle use electric power?

The simple solution is at registration time you pay the tax. There already exists in most states a provision for non Gas/diesel user sto pay their highway taxes.

The simple solution is at registration time you pay the tax. There already exists in most states a provision for non Gas/diesel user sto pay their highway taxes.

Simple, yes, but fair? A registration tax really would punish someone who only drives 5000 miles/year and be a heck of a bargain to someone who drives 50,000 miles/year. The thing about gas tax is that it is fair. The more you drive, the more you pay, the bigger your vehicle, the more you pay.

Oh joy! A big thread on taxation. That's a prime opportunity to have some fun and point out unfair, misleading, or inaccurate statistics.

Let's see if I can do it all the while avoiding politics.

Count me in the 8% that would pay $1 more. The quote from the Center on Public Policy Research makes no sense. The feeling there is that this would make no long term change in usage is ridiculous. I mean how can someone think that - you have to assume that people are so addicted to their FSPs that they can't change no matter what the price.

The CPPR is a oil-industry funded think tank. In that sense, the quote makes perfect sense.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=59

They're already getting 2.7 trillion in revenues - try cutting spending for a change instead.

Is $2.7 trillion in revenues a lot? I bet that's a lot in Ecuador. What about here?

The only fair way to gauge tax burden is as a % of GDP. That controls for inflation & growth:

http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.shtml

US Federal 2007: 18.8% of GDP

The national debt is ficticious. It is accounting only. The government does not have debt. The government creates the money. If they need more money they "print" or create more money.


The debt is real, and will be paid off. Either:

(1) We raise taxes and cut spending like we did in the 90s to ensure access to credit to continue paying off our hundreds of billions in debt interest every year, or

(2) We print money to pay off the debt, at which point hyperinflation reduces our access to credit and requires IMF intervention and IMF-mandated austerity in order to receive an international stamp-of-approval and renewed willingness of internationals to lend.

Sounds like you think Argentina in the 80s is our future, and not US in the 90s. Hope you are wrong.

Ahh, the national monetary policy makes since now. The less the dollar is worth, the less our debt is worth. Now that's actually fairly brilliant.

So if we could just get the dollar-to-euro exchange rate down to something like:

1,000,000 $ to 1 Euro, then we would have a nation debt we could start reducing in a few decades.

Gotta hand it to them Washington eggheads... they know what they are doing...

Brilliant!

11011011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USDebt.png

At 60+% of GDP, our national debt is still somewhat manageable, and lower than most of the post war period. Even today, our national debt as a burden on GDP is not much higher than many European countries. Somebody look up Belgium.

Of course, the post war period was characterized by high productivity growth & rational fiscal policy after a kick !@# success of a war. Today? Uh, well, the opposite.

But it's definitely not too late to turn this sucker around. We were well on our way in the 90s.

A basic truth about tax reform.

When tax reform happens, taxes always go up. Be careful what you wish for.

The 1986 tax reform was revenue-neutral. Taxation did not go up.

Reagan wanted to lower the top bracket income rates to 28%, to replicate the top rate in the Coolidge era 1920s (he liked Coolidge, had a photo of him behind his Oval Office desk, agreed that "the business of America is business").

Congress, increasingly worried about sky-rocketing deficits due to primarily tax cuts and defense spending increases, countered that that would be acceptable provided Reagan agreed to eliminating significant deductions/credits. Reagan said ok.

That way, Reagan got to claim a rate cut and Congress got to claim a significant simplification. They were both right, with little budgetary impact.

I support a tax up front on gas guzzlers, but never, never on gasoline. Count me in on the group that refuses to pay even one cent more. That just further drives the working classes into the hole while richer people get a pass because hey, they can afford it. Companies with bottom lines, ordinary drivers, and especially independent truckers will be annihilated by higher gas prices.

It's just another example of the Democrats wanting to tax the **** out of everything so everyone's poor - and then when that happens, the poor get on the welfare rolls just like the Democrats want them to, so they're hopelessly dependent on the government - and then inclined to vote Democrat so they continue to get their government checks (without realizing the Democrats put them in this situation).


This is the quandry of the gas tax, a regressive tax that hits poorer Americans more by taking a bigger percentage chunk of their income.

On the one hand, government should absolutely tilt markets to encourage positive social outcomes and discourage negative ones. To take an extreme example, who would support a 1916 Wilson government proposal that German and American potatoes be subject to the same tax/tarriff rates? Nobody.

On the other hand, a refusal to focus on tax equity makes for an unfair burden, and is unlikely to succeed unless we are all in this together, can make choices to avoid pain, and share the pain fairly when we do make those choices.

But students in Northern Kentucky just starting out don't have the flexibility like others to avoid that pain. ;) It's not fair.

The best solution is to use time. Implement a gas tax and or non-gas subsidy that goes into force 5-10 years from now. Give everyone more opportunity to plan ahead to avoid the pain. It makes it more of a "choice".

Of course, time may now be less of a luxury.

OK, I'm done. That was fun!

I think I (almost) avoided politics! That's always my goal.

Oh joy! A big thread on taxation. That's a prime opportunity to have some fun and point out unfair, misleading, or inaccurate statistics.

Let's see if I can do it all the while avoiding politics.

Oh please not a political thread. I have seen too many at PC turn into knock down drag out name calling fights.

I will graciously bow out of this one. Maybe sometime if we have a big GleanMPG PowWow. NO, on second thought that wouldn't be a good idea either.

Hmmm. A CleanMPG PowWow. Now that's a thought.

Hi All:

___The only thing I can add is your SS input (15 + % including your employers contribution) will come back to you in a lot less amount due to our budget deficit being masked by your contributions. Anybody making over 100K stops paying into that budget deceit shortcoming. Secondly, since the ages to receive SS are being indexed, you will not recover but maybe 30% of what you placed in even at Bond yields!

___Government deficits are real and we will all find out when we try and retire and you have to be 68 years old and receive less than 30% of what we could have if that 15% were to have gone into our own accounts rather than the governments at a very modest bond yield compounded as the government does. Than again, what is the $ worth when you retire vs. what you will hopefully receive if they keep printing? IIRC, M2 (or was it M3) was removed from the money supply vernacular a few years back so as to stop showing the world how the US cooks its own books :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Think I'll just tax myself for gas. Put it in an account to either pay for future gas I can't afford or get a PHEV.

Think I'll just tax myself for gas. Put it in an account to either pay for future gas I can't afford or get a PHEV.

Excellent idea, but anyone that doesn't think they are being taxed enough has always had the option of sending more than the IRS demands we pay.

Excellent idea, but anyone that doesn't think they are being taxed enough has always had the option of sending more than the IRS demands we pay.

And for all your patriotism and charity, you'd probably be audited and put on a watch list. Pass.:flag:

I'd like to present a challenge to the any government regualtion is bad group.

Suppose there was zero regulations like the late 1800's.

When you see Bejing during the Summer Olympics, this is how LA looked in the 1960's...without emissions control...I'd venture to say all US urban areas of a million and above would look the same if emissions were pre-1975.

Also imagine no requirements for airbags, crumple zones, interior padding, etc...would national traffic fatalities go to 75,000? 100,000?

In the early 1970's the average US vehicle got 12 or 14mpg - what would the fleet mpg be without CAFE? I'd guess it would still be around 15mpg instead of 20, so instead of importing 10 millions bbls daily, it would be 15. As it is oil is the biggest item in our trade deficit. Look how Detroit was "helped" by keeping the CAFE to 27.5mpg for about 20 years.

I view regulation like a classroom - a behaved class has fewer rules than an unruly one. Laws generally get passed when things go out of control. If the rest of the nation cared only half as much as this site, the US would probably be importing only 5 million bbls daily, the Volt would have already been in production...

Sorry, I just don't have faith the general public is going to freely trade their gas guzzlers until the American economy has some body blows. Which is better - making the CAFE numbers higher in the early 1990's or have lenient regulations that put Chrysler and Ford in a position they may not even exist in 2020?

I view regulation like a classroom - a behaved class has fewer rules than an unruly one.



Hi Chuck,

Good analogy. Is the classroom college or kindergarten. LOL

Taxes are one of the few interfaces between a government and its citizens. It's one of the few ways in which they directly interact. It's also one of few ways a government can attempt to influence citizens (tax breaks and increases work about as well), and it's among the simpler and more politically viable, since there's less fighting with an internal bureaucracy.

When it comes right down to it, people do expect services, and some of those services are best left to the public trust (and others would be downright disastrous in the public trust, but that's beside the point). And those services aren't free. It does no good to whine that taxes are too high and the government needs to cut spending and then complain that roads aren't getting fixed or education is underfunded.

While they aren't always used wisely, taxes aren't part of some grand governmental conspiracy to keep everyone poor, nor are they the bane of all that is good and pure with capitalism. In fact, many European nations which are more heavily taxed than the US have much lower poverty rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States, care of the United Nations Development Programme). When something like this is introduced, a knee-jerk condemnation does absolutely no justice whatsoever to the aims it might wish to accomplish. What people need to do is look at what the purpose of the tax is, what the not-so-apparent purposes and consequences may be, how effective the tax may be toward accomplishing the purpose, and if the outlook is not so good, propose an alternative. I don't see enough of this in the general public, and this truly concerns me.

I've said it before, I will certainly say it again. Government needs to re-examine itself, and have the willingness to reorganize itself and trim the fat, to be most effective. Doing this, and sunsetting even some truly unnecessary services, we could probably fund existing necessary services, expand new services, look to cut into the national debt, and probably cut taxes. Of course, then you have to deal with the people who benefit from those sunsetting programs and wouldn't want them to sunset (who may have deep pockets). You can't simply say "cut spending" without a true understanding of where that money is going. I only have a limited scope of that understanding...so I really don't know right now...but can't we at least take it upon ourselves to find out?

In the early 1970's the average US vehicle got 12 or 14mpg - what would the fleet mpg be without CAFE? I'd guess it would still be around 15mpg instead of 20, so instead of importing 10 millions bbls daily, it would be 15. As it is oil is the biggest item in our trade deficit. Look how Detroit was "helped" by keeping the CAFE to 27.5mpg for about 20 years.


I believe that the SUV boom was one of the unintended consequences of this regulation. People have a way of finding a way around most government regulations.

But, I would rather live in a country where people are free to make bad choices than live in a country where the army goose-steps while marching in a parade. High fuel prices are doing more than many decades of regulations have when it comes to making people choose sensible transportation.

PDK
Generally, I agree.
One struggle, IM(humble)O, is how we elect our lawmakers. Pithy soundbites on expensive TV ads has been destructive to the political process. They require LOTS of money (hello lobbyists) and short-circuit any chance of real dialogue. We have a confusing array of information available, we are accustomed to immediate gratification, and are reluctant to really struggle in the realm of ideas (this is the nice way to say the typical voter is only interested in "what have you done for me lately?"). I am concerned that there will never be a politician who has the will to do what it takes to shift priorities in spending. Sunsetting programs is a dangerous proposition for anyone that wants to get re-elected.

Every new regulation and new tax has unintended consequences. That's why I typically have a knee jerk negative response. They never seem to replace- only add to- the gov't and its costs.

Keith

I believe that the SUV boom was one of the unintended consequences of this regulation. People have a way of finding a way around most government regulations.This is my take - it took the Oil Embargo of 1973 and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression to get CAFE passed in 1975. After that, the level of pain never got that bad save maybe 1979. We got the Saudis to pump more oil in the 80's, then collectively we acted like the 70's Energy Crisis would never return...then the Jeep Cherokee became a hit in the mid 80's and Detroit discovered the SUV loophole. What should have happened is that loophole should have been addressed early, but instead it became bigger when the late 90's tax laws could give people 20K off of a luxury SUV...people became so accustomed to larger vehicles that "small" increased to "mid to full-sized" sedans.

Not so long ago, Bill Gates remarked about how technology has given us things Kings and Presidents only dreamed of...for instance LBJ had three TVs in the White House to track the media...I can turn on a TV, radio, and a dozen browsers plus e-mail.

I can't feel government is that oppressive when so many of us have been driving things approaching a palace on wheels.

Taxes are one of the few interfaces between a government and its citizens. It's one of the few ways in which they directly interact. .....


While they aren't always used wisely, taxes aren't part of some grand governmental conspiracy to keep everyone poor, nor are they the bane of all that is good and pure with capitalism. In fact, many European nations which are more heavily taxed than the US have much lower poverty rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States, care of the United Nations Development Programme). When something like this is introduced, a knee-jerk condemnation does absolutely no justice whatsoever to the aims it might wish to accomplish. What people need to do is look at what the purpose of the tax is, what the not-so-apparent purposes and consequences may be, how effective the tax may be toward accomplishing the purpose, and if the outlook is not so good, propose an alternative. I don't see enough of this in the general public, and this truly concerns me.

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Most economists do not think that the US tax system is efficient. Value added taxes (VATs) like most European nations principally use are generally considered more efficient, but less progressive than income taxes. Instead of using progressive tax rates Europeans fund a more generous "safety net" to achieve a notion of social fairness. In some instances VATS increase economic tax efficiency at high income levels more than enough to pay for the more generous safety net.

To my way of thinking the price people pay at the pump for gasoline should, through appropriate tax rates, reflect the total social costs of its consumption--including pollution costs and extra expenditures to guarantee a stable adequate supply. Ideally they could use the proceeds to cut the national debt (which would help reduce interest rates) or my taxes.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way. http://www.pigouclub.com/about/

Hi All:

___I learn some really interesting stuff from all of you :)

___A $0.50 per gas tax is not about collecting $’s, it is about reducing our reliance on foreign (read any) oil which is worth the short term hit. That $0.50 is not going to collect a dime over time as more fuel efficient vehicles hit the road but it is an inducement to purchase higher FE vehicles the next time you visit your dealership which has the same influence as lowering yours and our countries overall fuel consumption. This is the real purpose, not to fill a coffer because it will not over time. Unless of course said buyer still wants the lifted 4x4 SUV and is willing to subsidize our government for his or her wants?

___At some point, the idling in the WalMart parking lots, driving at 75 + and multiple trips past the same location go away because it is not cost effective to do so. That or there is less food on the table for the lower income classes? Will $0.50 do it? If it hasn’t done it in Europe, it probably will not here either but European’s do not even have the choice to purchase something as ridiculous as an Expedition, Suburban, Tahoe or Durango for driving mommy and daddy back and forth to work :rolleyes:

___Good Luck

___Wayne