We Needed A Big Gas Tax

It's because of the way politics works in the USA and the motivations of people.

Environmentalism in the USA ceased to be about the environment a long time ago. It's like any other faction in US politics. It's about forcing everyone else to live the way a particular faction says so.

If the government just taxed the crap out of fuel and lowered the income tax, then big cars, performance cars, etc would still be avialable limitlessly from the automakers. Groups would complain that taxing consumption was unfair to the poor as well.

With CAFE, the traditional large american passenger car was nearly eliminated. They wanted to control what people could buy. It backfired when people started buying inclosed trucks now known as SUVs.

CAFE controls what is available for people to buy. So If you could afford to fuel a land barge with $6/gal fuel because of taxes, then you'd get one. Under CAFE, even with $2/gal fuel you couldn't buy one because the automakers couldn't take the penalities for building it.

(yes, yes I know a few vehicles where the buyer just pays the gas guzzler tax, but this is only for very expensive cars with low volume production, not say a full size station wagon or something)

This is a yes & no proposition. While it does in fact hurt those who can least afford it (minimum wage burger flippers in an area of no mass transit). Those whom it doesn't affect would go freakin hog crazy and stick their noses so far into the damn trough there would be nothing left.

Already many who need fuel to conduct business (farmers & others) do not have to pay the taxes on fuel needed to produce certain things in our economy. Of course the Military which sucks up a tremendous amount of fuel and the US Postal Service (Number one consumer of fuel) already don't pay taxes either.

Even though the prices of crude do have an impact there is also the issue of the capacity to turn raw crude into fuels. There hasn't been a new refinery built in the US in about 30 years while the demand curve has steadily increased.

Certain taxes on fuel are supposed to go to pay for the infrastructure to support the use of vehicles, i.e. roads & bridges. Unfortunately in many states these taxes go directly into the states general funds and never do get spent on improving the roads if the roads in my area are any indicator.

Yes driving a high-performance vehicle to & from work is a royal blast. However, it simply isn't required. The major problem is no viable mass transit alternative for the majority of the country to get anywhere. I can drive the 18 miles to work in 30/40 minutes. If I was to take the bus it would be more like 2.5 hours in each direction and I still have to get to the bus stop.

The answer is out there somewhere, but I doubt that anyone in the US government is going to come up with it.

Man, you sure picked a prickly topic here!

Here is my two cents.

I believe in the school of economics that says the basic problem with any government, with soft budget constraints, is that it's fundamentally incapable of the necessary self-regulation and efficiency the free market can provide. Socializing health care can give you good stories, but on the whole, it costs everyone more. And as for the gross shortcomings of the free market, cite Enron, cite WorldCom, fine; I agree that it's all flawed. But nothing is more flawed than an enterprise that can never actually go bankrupt. Nothing can borrow from Peter to pay Paul with more impugnity than a wealthy democratic government.

Futhermore, attempting to place too many artificial controls on the free markets in the form of excessive taxes, price supports, price ceilings and other mechanisms such as subsidies does more damage in the long term than good, and creates more inequity than it ever solves. These things creates perverse incentives, and dysfunctional reactions that are counterproductive to the causes in general - and I'm not talking in terms of years, I'm talking in terms of seconds, once the news breaks.

Gasoline is a very price-inelastic commodity, like tobacco and illicit drugs. As such, raising its price by 1% will always result in an increase in revenue and profits that is more than 1%. All the government is going to do by taxing the hell out of fuel and energy is to raise more money to fund its inefficiencies, causing more inefficiencies of bloated bureacracy to oversee the inefficiencies it caused, hence costing the consumer again a disproportionately large sum of money for a paternalistic policy, and the original intentions of the legislation are forever lost and twisted by those who come along and figure out how to make money off of it.

We most definitely do need an energy policy. It just cannot be solely based on taxing fuel. It sounds good until you dig deeper.

Well I've been saying that for years, but it still hasn't happened. The average American has absolutely no idea how much their tax bite really is. Especially when they hide it under the names of user fees, licenses and so forth. I sat down and added it all up once and about shit.

I retired from the Military ten years ago with a nice "little" monthly stipend for life. It wasn't anywhere near enough to live on or raise a young family so of course second career here I come. Currently I pay my entire monthly Military Retirement Check (funded by taxes) back in payroll taxes every bi-weekly pay period. Sort of like giving Burger King a rebate for working for them every year. It sucks to lose 2 times what I draw annually in retirement benefits funded by taxes back in taxes.

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 09:16:04 -0400, ZombyWoof puked:

How much money would be saved if the postal service eliminated Saturday delivery? In fact, Monday - Wednesday - Friday delivery would probably serve most people what with fax, email and other delivery services already working...

-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?

Us computer literate folks do not yet represent a large enough segment of the population to go that far. However, I do believe Saturday delivery could be shit-canned with no adverse affect. I haven't written or received a postal letter in years. Majority of my mail is shit-canned on my way into the house with it. The rest is simply bills and an occasional special occasion card.

It is one good, articulate presidential candidate away from happening, IMO. A good old fashioned Ross Perot type pie-chart speech to a nationwide audience would do the trick. Maybe take one of the debates and give each candidate a 1/2 hour uninterupted time block.

If you want to see how the Bush's tax policies have effected your tax rates check out this link:

graphs Tax Freedom Day for the last 25 years and shows what that day was over the last 100+ years. Look further down the page and see the pie chart that compares federal/state/local taxes to other typical expenses. Taxes took 107 days of income and household and household operations (i.e. mortage, utilities, repairs etc.) only took 65 days of income! On average government takes 65% more money than the average person spends on owning and maintaining a house every year. Plus, I would wager they don't calculate all the user fees and micellaneous hidden taxes in their figures.

They have already dropped most Saturday deliveries to businesses if they are closed on the weekends.

You know that's a DAMN good idea!

Patrick '93 Cobra

Let's not eliminate saturday delivery, just eliminate the pounds of crap that I get in the mail that goes directly from the mail box to the trash or recycle.

My biggest expense by far is taxes. Nothing else comes close. Even if I start adding stuff together. Taxes are probably about equal to all my other expenses, manditory, optional, and otherwise combined.

Government can help people the most by eliminating the dependency class, making sure that everyone pays at least some taxes and pass the savings on to those who actually pay taxes.

Of course that will never happen because a dependency class and a class of voters that pay no taxes (of a particular type) are in government's best interest. The group that is dependent will continue to vote for the status quo and those who pay no taxes will continually vote for tax increases on other people.

This is a bogus figure because it includes people who simply have a gap in coverage. For instance, I had a gap in coverage when I went from one employer to another. I then counted as not having health care for the full year. Pretty bogus. Also counted are people who on their own decide they would rather have the money and pay for insurance even though they could afford to.

Quality of life is a problem in the USA because there is a constant influx of people willing to work for very low wages and we have a system that basically gives us very little time for our own lives. It's work hard until you die. I'd love to have a month off each year. If the choice was the status quo and gasoline taxed to $5 a gallon but I got a month off every year, I'd go for the later.

We have a one party system. The differences amount to nothing more than words. The sale of our economy to Communist China became wholesale while Clinton was in office and has only continued. In fact most of the changes that allowed this occured under Clinton. Both of our so called parties support this nonsense because their money supply supports it.

It's the real treason here. Acting in the interest of lobbiests and campiagn donors instead of doing what is right for the nation.

If you look at who actually pays the taxes in this nation I would say the top 5% of wage earners is currently paying 53% of the income taxes while earning 32% of all income. The top 50% of wage earners are currently paying 96% of the income taxes while earning 86% of all income.

Could you point out what isn't fair here and in which direction?

This started before shrub and only continues under him unchecked.

Democrats have had control of the schools for decades. They decided to use the schools to increase government power and promote the status quo. The republicans don't fix this because it's not in their intrests to, in fact it is also in their interests to make sure people are not educated.

Corporations get money under democrat admins as well. So do foreign countries. You just don't hear about it as much.

We have one effective party in this nation. The difference between Ds and Rs is an illusion, a perception to keep the populace bickering back and forth while the elites continue to control everything unchecked.

I'll sum up how the two parties are the same with a quote:

"We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians, We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest." -Sen. John Kerry, CNN, 1997.

If it weren't for that "crap" stamps would be $2.50 a pop. ;)

Maybe... but energy would be saved by eliminating it! :)

But think of all the lost jobs. :o)

They come from the IRS. The link given for the raw data is:

Why do they need the government to force them?

Most people who think there should be higher taxes to help the 'poor' and the like are all about doing their beveolence with other people's money.

First website seems to consist mostly of feelings. The second shows the obvious, the Bush tax cut helped those who paid taxes. It's hard to have a tax cut when your income tax is already zero. It's hard to have a big tax cut when your income taxes are already small.

Now getting back to 'fair share' Tell me why those values are unfair. I am waiting for you to make the case.

Dems are not a leser evil. They are mostly we-know-what's-good-for-you elitests who already have wealth and use the tax code and regulation to make it difficult for anyone else to reach their level of wealth. They foster a dependency class by giving money out of the treasury, stealing from one citizen to give to another.

No they aren't. They use the environment as tool to gain control over our lives. That's all it has become, a tool, an excuse for more power.

The so called standards you are refering to under the democrats were an all or nothing upgrade policy. Either power companies didn't change anything or if they upgraded one component it all had to be replaced and upgraded. This all or nothing approach just encouraged power plants to keep patching their ancient, dirty equipment up because of the huge expense of wholesale replacement. The evil republican changes allowed power companies to upgrade components as they broke. Sure, replacing one component at a time wasn't as clean as replacing everything. But, in the real world, it was cleaner than what the all-or-nothing regs caused.

Going for tangents?

I could go on and on about things too. I am glad you people woke up and are now examining government. The only problem is, a democrat will be elected and you'll all go to sleep again and the march against our liberty will continue on just as it did under past dem admins. At least it's noticed when republicans do it. (notice dems never reverse what the republicans take from us and vice versa) I just wish the media and the loud dem followers would examine 'their' guys as closely. If they did, they would learn what I have.

I suppose living in the chicago area all my life has allowed me to see the scope and method of democrat party corruption and goings on that allow me to see that they are just as bad as the republicans.

Down to insults already? Well, you did last longer than most liberals on usenet.

The fact of the matter is, the environment is now an excuse to gain more power over our lives. The kyoto treaty made that very, very clear.

*sigh* more crapola. Could you try examining things for once.

I don't follow needless tangents. Perhaps you'd like to discuss the vast UFO coverup? I didn't think so.

More insults. How lame.

BTW, democrats are the elites too. But you buy their 'for the common man' bullshit. Keep the delusion that their is a choice between these two so called parties and liberty will continue to decline.

When you have some actual material to discuss, post again. Otherwise, don't waste my time with insults.

In article , Hank wrote 943 lines of crap and cut and paste of some long article on how GWB 'lied':

Here's a big clue for you Hank, just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I like GWB or am a republican. It means I don't agree with you. Had you bothered to read for comprehension, you would have noticed that I don't like GWB or republicans in my posts.

I see that we have one effective party in this country. The differences are superfical and most of what we see is just drama to distract us.

As to your included article, I didn't read it. Don't need to. I am sure I've seen it all before and it has nothing to do with the subject matter I had initially replied to your post on. Something that has fallen by the wayside since you couldn't counter the facts regarding how much and what share (an overwhelming share) of the income tax is paid by a group you said wasn't paying it's fair share.