Those light trucks CAFE gave a break are doing more damage than they cost....and most of them are personal instead of bussiness vehicles. Continue to sell them on the cheap and they will wreck the American economy, slowly but surely - no gas tax hike necessary. I'm not sure a gas tax hike is the best way to wean the public to more fuel efficient vehicles. If millions are eating their way to a heart attack, or smoking their way to death, I'm sure they will run on empty too.

Yes, there are already people that are having trouble budgeting their monthly gas bill.

Yes, there are a lot of people that can only buy previously-owned vehicles.

....but....

I see a lot people pulled over for speeding

I see a lot of people driving recklessly or distracted

I see a lot of people using a Surban and the like as a commute vehicle


Granted this is Dallas, and maybe I see more people with high-value vehicles. Some friends at work from the MidWest have noticed the increased arrogance of Dallas drivers (driving fast and big).


Yes, I realize a gas tax is using the law to address that CAFE loophole - the SUV.

Fifty or so years ago, families had one, maybe two vehicles and they were probably low-performance by today's standards. Since then, our roads have more vehicles - bigger and faster. If we were talking anything else with rising demand, we would say increasing the gas tax is just responding to market forces. Yes, I realize this is social engineering to correct bad social engineering.

If I let my grass in the front yard grow two feet tall or paint the house in various neon colors, is someone going to stop me? - yes. If I decide to get an H2 as a commute vehicle, I can get a tax break and make sure our grand children experience Ozone Action days every other day of the Spring and Summer! This sounds like bad priorities....

When I see Dallas-area radio station vehicles, do they come in a VW Beetle or a mini-van? No! Invariably it's an H2! Ditto for a lot of busineses. Can someone explain to me a practical reason why a Hummer is necessary for such businesses?

It seems more popular to give gas-guzzlers a bigger tax break than fuel-saving vehicles. The vehicles most responsible for tearing up our roads, bridges, and causing Ozone Alert Days are not getting taxed enough to pay for the damage.

I don't want thousands from GM and Ford layed off - maybe some executives for sticking with gas-guzzlers while they let the Taruses and Oldsmobiles go extinct.

Cheap Oil is not forever. The longer America pretends driving sub 20mpg vehicles are our birthright, the worse the economic crash will be.

 

I totally agree. But the majority of the people don't see the hand-writing on the wall.

I have a feeling it will have to get real bad before anything is done by anyone.


Regards,

 

I realize my last post was pretty impassioned to put it mildly.

If I eat fast food frequently or do binge drinking, I will pay the price. For most part, everyone else goes about their business.

If I make my 25-mile work commute in a 12mpg vehicle alone, I tear up roads more, add more Ozone Days, drive the price of gas up - hurting the economy. Others pay. Well, I do pay but others suffer from my actions.

As HawkGT647 said, people have this tendancy to walk off a bridge into the water before they acknowledge there is a problem.

Maybe I better take a break and let my blood pressure return to normal.

 

I would like to elaborate on my previous post:

The $1 tax per gallon would actually be applied on imported barrels only. This would be done to make us more independent and release us from the burden of being reliant on OPEC (by the way, if you can get 8 letter license plates in your state "PUCK OFEC" is the way to go). This tax would not be felt 100% at the pump because the fuel distributors would buy more local oil (which has the added benefeit of getting our military out of countries that wouldnt even be on the map if it werent for oil, and into countries who really need the help. Look up the SPR(strategic petrolium reserver)). Yes, prices would go up, gas, most likely by 50 cents per gallon. Big deal...from January to March of this year, the USA Fuel price average increased from $1.75 to $2.27 per gallon. Thats over 50 cents per gallon, and our economy still exists. I still buy gas (interesting enough, I bought an HCH in late February). I also still buy groceries. In fact, gas is up to a national average of $2.35 and things still seem to be going ok, except for the fact that the government is not encouraging automakers to create more fuel efficient cars, we still have kids being shot in Iraq (1833 dead, 13,559 injured), and people are still making idiotic driving choices.

I guess that this kinda shows that it would most likely have little impact on our economy while making us more self reliant and creating more funds for manufacturers to use for more fuel efficient cars or to give out as credits for being smart consumers.

Thats my .02, I think its worth more than that, but it doesnt sound like anybody really wants to buy it even for .02.

Ryan

 

o yea, and I forgot to mention, I still have a job, and I work with banks every day to help cut down their reliance on Jets to transport Checks by getting them set up to use the Check21 law to exchange images and data electronically. Even after a .50 increase in fuel prices...which isnt the end of increases without the tax.

Prices actually would begin to fall because there would be less supply than demand.

Thanks for reading, and for hybriding!

 

Gas prices will rise on their own because of dwindling supply and the continuously growing demand, not to mention the fact that there are wars being planned (and ongoing occupation) in oil producing countries. We (westerners) need to get off this crack we call oil before it does kill our economy on it's own accord.

A gas tax increase won't solve the problem, but if applied correctly (to foreign energy imports) it will shift the focus earlier towards domestic energy (biofuels) and other efficient technology before there's a real crisis that can't be undone, like a tax can.

Check this article out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062301896.html

 

Actually we do. I don't mean to be flippant, however it is called macroeconomic modeling. I should go look for a previous post of mine from some month back explaining this, however you can take a very broad look at the whole economy, factor in an increased tax and then model the effect against GDP or GNP (pick your poison). It isn't hard either. Here is the formula: Cx + Ix + G - Tx = GDP/GNP.

x is the multiplication factory in an economy. C is consumer spending. I is industrial or commercial spending (or is C consumption and I is investment, well you should get the point). G is government spending. T is taxation. Let's say that in the U.S. economy you have a multiplication factor of 7. Then consumer spending and industrial spending are all multiplied 7 times, or rather, for every dollar that is spent, it cycles around in the economy 7 times. Notice that G (govt. spending) has no multiplier. Well, that is because govt. spending ads to GDP/GNP but it isn't affected by the multiplication factors of private sector spending. But here is what is most important, taxes are affected by the multiplication factor in the economy. Take the total dollar value of taxes, and multiply by our example factor of 7 and then it gets subtracted from the C,I,G combination. Taxes, in any form, reduce GDP or GNP. Or better said, taxes reduce spending, which reduces the power of our economy. You can take that home and apply it to your life, your neighbors lives, your employer's operations (which means your job) the working poor, the destitute poor.

No society has ever taxed itself into prosperity. No moral society uses the tax code to control individual behavior. If you want to control individual behavior, do so directly.

 

I agree that a heavily taxed society dampens the economy. Just speaking for myself, it was the kind of tax to use, not the amount. The Texas legislature is in it's second special session debating the fairness of various kinds of taxes....

I'll say it again, I resent that vehicles such as the Hummer have received huge tax breaks, yet there is considerable resistance to either a gas tax or increasing the CAFE standards. Makes me wish there was a nearby planet I could relocate to safe from the ones ruining this world.

 

There's some evidence that suggests the ones intent on ruining this planet already have their retirement homes built on another planet (or in it, rather) and that's why they really don't give a f**k about this place, or us.

We almost had electric vehicles on the road, thanks to some legislation that got the industry off their lazy asses. That didn't last long though because the industry fought the legislation and so now we have this joke of a compromise: PZEV -- cars that don't have evaporative emissions. BIG WHOOP! That does virtually nothing to reduce the GHG emissions and we already had SULEV vehicles. Once electric vehicles are on the road, then the cycle that ICE vehicles went through can happen with EVs, improvement via competition and innovation. Industry would be busy again with fresh development of technology that isn't saturated by big players because (no matter what) the EVs would be gradually introduced into the market, thus allowing for some 3rd party manufacturers to compete. In my opinion we really need to set a date and stick to it for getting ZEV technology on the road, but how that happens will still probably be 'up to' the industry, not the consumer.

 

I am not sure that I understand because I do not see where this equation factors in human choice.

It would create a boost in our economy because people would switch to local oil suppliers instead of going overseas for it.

To say that our society is not controlling is just stupid by the way. You already pay tax, on everything. The government actually pays for lots of stupid things to help them sell, like ethanol. If you want to be free of this type of control, get a boat, there is a big ocean, good luck with life (food, water, I would say gas, but God will probably let you borrow his wind).