This thread is just about dead, but...

The last thing any state needs is an even incrementally higher gas tax. Reappropriation is the key. Since significant percentages of gas tax revenue is sent into general funds and entirely unrelated fields of government spending, it is up to legislatures to correct the pavement and road transportation issue by reappropriating a significant portion of our existing gas taxes back to state DOTs. Will other "programs" loose out. Sure. However this is a necessary adjustment which must happen. Either that or yet an increased tax which further diminishes local and regional economic strength.

As I demonstrated a number of posts above, taxes reduce economic power and strength.

 

the entire 3000 car vs 6000 lb suv doing more damage isn't correct

prius with thin tires at 3000 lbs will put more stress on a road than lets say a corvette with very wide tires at 3,000 lbs.

reason being contact patch and weight being distributed.

Hybrids maybe light but use very narrow tires with high PSI in the tires and thus have a small contact patch putting more stress on the road per square inch vs a heavier vehicle using larger tires that distribute the weight.

If SUVs used small contact patch tires then YES your arguement would be correct.

This is the Gov't looking to screw the public out of more $$$$$$$ plain and simple.

 

That is correct!

Three words that should be the guiding force in government spending. Reppropriate, eappropriate, reappropriate!

 

This mess is why I'm behind John Linder's fair tax plan.
No payroll taxes. The amendment would be repealed.
No April 15 deadline because you'd have no tax return to file.
Everyone follows the same rules.

Imagine keeping ALL of your paycheck! No more "Take home pay".

http://www.johnlinder.com/IssueDetails.asp?IssueID=9

Every aspect of everything you buy is heavily taxed from it's conception, research, design, manufacture, advertisement, shipping and sale, gasoline included.
How much less would that widget you just bought today be, if there were zero taxes attached to it? 40% ? 60% ? In some cases 80% ?

True tax rates would no longer be hidden, it would be all out in the open for all of us to plainly see because we pay it at the point of sale, about 24 cents on the dollar. Since you have all of your paycheck you have more spending power (Or saving power) and goods would be cheaper to buy. After all, this is your money, not theirs, right?

This has gained tremendous momentum in the past few years and let me make a political & media prediction of scaring old persons about loosing all their benefits? (Just like they say about the current SS reform in the works?)
That vote making scheme works, as many are still voted back into office.

 

People go through considerable effort to skirt the 7-8% sales tax we have in Arizona. It's not epidemic or anything, but everyone knows someone or has personally jumped through hoops to do transactions without paying sales tax. In order to fund the Federal government the way it is now, you'd need something like a 30% sales tax.

All of a sudden, the motivation to do your purchasing off the books, via grey market undocumented cash transactions goes WAY up. People become used to the idea of breaking the law as standard practice and it diminishes the overall respect for all law. Payroll taxes are easy to regulate because for the overwhelming majority of people with a significan salary, there's no practical way to keep the feds from finding out how much your company paid you. Avoiding taxes on a large number of small purchases however would be far easier to hide.

As much as I hate income taxes, I hate cheaters even more and I know for a fact it's way easier to cheat at not paying sales tax than it is to hide income.

 

Right on! Higher gas prices are the surest way to increase the average mileage of vehicles sold in this country. Oh, yes, I suppose they could pass a LAW requiring automakers to achieve a given average by a certain date, blah blah blah..., but that would be an abominable affront to the free market. Personally, I regret that higher prices, whether caused by market forces or taxes, will hurt the poor the hardest, but that's an effect that could be mitigated.

 

Washington State has one of the highest sales taxes in the nation, not based on the base tax the state gets, but on that tax in addition to local taxes. How would a state with a sales tax exist in a nation with an additional national sales tax. As much as I like Linder's suggestion, state taxing schemes really mess up what he wants to do.

Steve Forbes had it correct. The IRS isn't the enemy, the legislation that gives the IRS its powers is. If you have a flat income tax with a very limited number of deductions and very high exemption amounts, the IRS problem, as Linder sees it would also go away. I'm so astonished why a flat income tax with high personal and marriage exemptions is so hated by the American public. It would accomplish the same thing as a national sales tax, but using current taxing infrastructure and diminishing the authority of the IRS through reduced confusion.

As for gas taxes; as consumers we pay them many times over. The businesses that haul our goods to market don't pay the gas tax, they pass it on in the form of fuel surcharges, increased shipping costs, etc. And that further gets passed on through the retailer in terms of higher product costs. So, as individuals, we don't just pay at the pump, we pay at the checkout and anyplace else we purchase any kind of good.

 

I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but the law already exists, it's called the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Law. It was set so long ago however, and with excemptions for trucks/SUV's/minivans so they don't have to have anywhere near the same fuel economy as everything else.

Did you know the PT Cruiser is classified as a truck by the EPA? Did you ever wonder why Chrysler constructed the PT Cruiser? Because as a "truck" it helps to greatly raise their CAFE figure to avoid the supposed fines you'd have to pay if your fleet fuel economy is too low. I have read however that Chrysler has been below the limit for years already and never pays the fine and the EPA is too lazy to try and enforce it anyway. Raising CAFE would do the trick as well, but doing it through a gas tax would have an immidiate effect not only on new vehicle sales, but also on existing driver habits and used vehicle choices.

Corporations don't exist, per say, so they can't "pay" the gasoline charges. A corporation is an empty shell that provides a legal mechanism by which you can make use of economies of scale with legal protection from being personally ruined if the company fails. If the company "paid" for the gasoline, they would STILL have to find some way to balance their budget. That means either building it into higher prices, cutting employee pay, cutting back on the workers they hire, or whatever. There's no such thing as a corporation paying for a price increase instead of "passing it on" because a corporation is simply a vehicle by which money changes hands between real producers and real consumers.

 

Quite right. What I should have said was they could pass a law requiring the average fuel economy for all vehicles sold in the U.S. to go up by at least a given rate each year. Dividing passenger vehicles into different classes, then regulating each class differently is not enough.

From the International Trade Administration:
The total fleet fuel economy peaked in 1987 at 26.2 mpg when light trucks made up a mere 28.1 percent of the market. By 2001 with light trucks making up 46.7 percent of the market total fleet fuel economy fell to 24.4 mpg. Currently, light trucks make up more than 50 percent of new vehicle sales. With the real [inflation adjusted] price of gasoline extremely low by historical standards we can expect consumers demand for more powerful, larger vehicles to continue to grow.

And average fuel economy continues to decrease. So without stricter regulations, ascending fuel prices are our only hope.

 

I think we are now dealing with semantics about what a business is. So, let's look at an example of what a company could do with a greater gas tax. Let's say you have a very profitable business that transports goods, or makes use of a great deal of transportation in creating their good. This organization has a great deal of retained earnings at any one time, but best measured at the end of their fiscal year. A gas tax or other fuel price increase comes along. They have two choices to make. Pass on the price of the increase through the product delivery chain, or eat it in terms of reduced yearly contribution to retained earnings. If competitive advantage was critical, they might look at their books and say, "Hey, we have been making out good on our product, let's eat the cost of these increases. Our competition probably can't do that, so it is an advantage for us." Or they can come back and say, "Woah, we have goals for our retained earnings account that we shouldn't abandon. Well, so much for our current pricing structure. To retain the gains we wish to see to retained earnings we are going to have to raise our prices."

Eventually all organizations pass on price increases, but some do have the ability to cushion those increases with the organizations own stored wealth or acceptance of lower profits and retained earnings. A business may be a vehicle for the movement of money from real produces to real consumers, but the people running that vehicle still make choices based upon their goals, whatever they may be.