"Raise the gas tax", USA Today Editorial Board says

Nice. I said they would already be looking. Let's take some numbers. If someone was driving 12000 miles a year getting 25 mpg, and gas taxes went up nothing in year one, then .25 cents in year 2, and anouther 25 cents in year 3 (50 cents total) it would cost an average of $2.30 a week extra in taxes. Nothing in the first year, $2.30 a week in year 2, and $4.60 a week in year 3. I hardly think that if someone was doing fine this extra amount would push them over the edge. Put your own numbers in.

Think gas is too pricey? Think again.

Should we get up to $1.65 additional tax, I doubt we would spend it wisely. But a strategy of adding $0.25 a gallon starting in 2012, and doing economic assessments would not be a bad strategy.

 

Nope. Our high-FE vehicles already get a discount by using less of the product. No additional discount needed or deserved.

 

Raising tax on gas raises prices on everything, Look at history of raising taxes!

Did the 10% tax on Luxury Boats help?
No it just put American Boat companies out of business?
Does Tariffs work on Import of Japanese Cars? Nope..
people still didn't buy American Cars...

Taxes are NEVER an Answer...

Raising taxes raises everything, it's a domino affect..
And if Raising it is not going to hurt like you say?
Then why would people buy more fuel efficient cars?

Only way you are going to make people buy more efficient cars is to make it HURT!
And then we all Hurt....

With 10% unemployment we don't need more taxes...

 

Tell the poor people to adapt, just like everyone else. It is OK for them to car-pool, to abandon exurbia, to wear a sweater inside the house, to use public transport, to walk, to bicycle, to turn down the AC ... the list goes on.

I'm sorry, but the refrain of "what about the poor!" is the excuse non-poor give to keep the status-quo.

 

Ya you are right, we shouldn't care about the poor... Just tell them to get another job~ oh wait there's 10% unemployment already! Well Just let them get government handouts that will solve everything! omg...
You guys win I can't fight logic like this.. :closed_2:

 

The only reason that $4 gas was such a shock to the system was because of the rate that the price of gas increased along with other economic issues (housing bubble) at the time. Gas went from $2.80-$4.20 in 3 months - you think that an auto manufacturer can do anything in that amount of time?

See above.

Yeah - because all those tax cuts have really helped us out.

Face it - there's a number of good reasons the gas tax needs to be raised:

1. We get most of our oil from abroad - taxing oil would help encourage people to stop buying it.
2. Current gas taxes don't come anywhere close to covering the price of maintaining roads. At a minimum, gas taxes should be slowly raised to where they do cover road maintenance and then the tax should be adjusted with inflation.
3. It's clear that cheap oil is over - even with the world economy still in the tank, the cost of oil is still at record highs. We could use a gas tax to fund tax credits/incentives to fuel small businesses who research/build technology which is renewable and sustainable.

 

One thing I'll say on this subject;

If it hadn't been the super high cost of petrol over here (£1.15 a litre/$6.76 US gallon) I would NOT be driving a Prius as a taxi - end of.

 

Yep. The subway and trains system in Tokyo is excellent.

Rx450h and Ford EcoBoost are guzzlers? OMG, no, you need to look at monstrosity class SUVs like Ice Capades err... Escalades, Expeditions, Navigators, Yukons, Tahoes, Suburbans, Excretions err Excursions, Durangos and the like.

 

But not the UK As fuel prices go up here, and people shift to public transport, that takes a hit so train and bus operators put the prices up to stop too many people using them, forcing people back into cars. Fuel tax here is not used to improve mass transit systems.

 

He's right you know, crazy as it sounds! There is only so much capacity on the trains without massive investment. The train operators have now reached that capacity over here - passenger numbers are doubled in the last 20 years here and are almost at the peak of the early 1950's! [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain[/ame]

So do the train companies build new lines at massive cost or just put up prices? Give you a guess which happened!

 

Perspective: The proposal by USA Today is very modest by any means. At 1 cent per month for 48 months that's about $0.50 in total on top of the current $0.18.

A $0.50 increase is about the minimum increase that would actually begin to change behaviors IMO. Less than that is next to nothing. At $1.00 a gallon then behaviors would change a lot.

A $0.50 increase for the average driver ( 15000 mpy = 300 mi/wk ) would come to about $5.00 per week extra in taxes based on 10 gal of usage. Yes that $5 per week will affect the minimum wage earners more than the wealthy but finding a way to rebate that back to the low-wage-earners is not difficult at all. $5? Hey isn't that the tax on cigarettes in NYC?

To make the system synergistic I say do away with the current flim-flam MPG ratings system and convert all vehicles to a USAGE rating system. Gallons per 100 mi ( GPC ) is the inverse of MPG (x 100). Using this metric makes all the calculations easier and puts the emphasis on USAGE, not some nebulous fakery called 'lets see how far I can go on one gallon'. Cold hard facts, when you drive 100 miles you use 2.1 gallons ( Prius ), or 2.5 gal ( HCH ) or 4 gal (Camry I4) or 5 gal (most V6's) .....

 

I 100% agree with you.


For those saying that in countries other than the US driving is a luxury:

That's why the US is great.

 

Artificially raising gas prices is not the answer to more fuel efficiency. It would destroy the US economy. The article says that the gas tax is half of what it was in the 1970s implying that the 1970s should be the benchmark. Did they ever consider that the 1970's was a disaster for the American economy. It took the tax cuts of Ronald Reagan to bring our economy back from the economic policies of the 1970's. There has never been a nation that has taxes themselves into prosperity.

 

My initial response is that I would support raising the gas tax only on private passenger vehicles in support of alternate energy sources, reducing consumption and better maintenance of our road systems.

If you raise the gas tax on commercial, industrial and transportation vehicles though you will pay for that tax increase many times over.

 

The problem with you saying that there is only $.18 tax per gallon on gasoline is that states have doubled or tripled the federal gas tax. The average American already pays $300.00 per year in gasoline taxes as it is. The answer to the problem is never adding a tax in the middle of a recession, but that is all we hear Tax Tax Tax. "We got to cut the deficit, we need shared sacrifice" here is an idea, don't spend a 2 trillion dollars on health care and a stimulus plan that only stimulated politicians.

 

I'd prefer more carrot and much less stick as happens here. There again, I'll say it again, if it hadn't been for the high cost of fuel over here, I wouldn't be driving a Prius.

Some times you guys crack me up. The very freedom the US and the West enjoys it put at risk by many many countries that hate and despise us. The majority of these countries sell us oil and hate us, really hate us and yet it's your freedom and way of life to drive a 15 mpg gas guzzler. Indeed it is, but what's the answer? Every barrel of oil purchased off these scum bags puts our soldiers lives at risk and eventually our way of life.

Switch to a more fuel efficient car (doesn't have to be a hybrid), cut your fuel bills by 20%, 30% or even 50% and that's less money out of your pocket and less into the likes of Iran or Venezuelas! I mean how do you think Iran can afford to develop nuclear weapons, oops, I mean nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

But the one thing about America and the West is that we're lucky to be free to choose. So choose away guys.

 

Incentives, not taxes. Like Grumpy eluded to. However I would also submit that some of these countries hated the West long before they were selling us oil. But no, it doesn't help to feed the fire, that is for sure.

 

That isn't even close to the average American's share of road maintenance costs.

Ronald Reagan converted the U.S. from the greatest creditor nation on the planet, to the greatest debtor nation on the planet. We never recovered from that massive debt, and it is a very serious contributor to the problems we face today.

 

not quite sure i would want a government run rail system since everytime the government is involved, the cost doubles while the level of service is halved. but i think subsidized rail improvements paid by gas taxes might be the way to go. just as the government built the national highway system, maybe they should build the tracks that run from city to city, then each city can build their own local transit system with help from the federal government.

i guess its one thing to argue over the best way to make a change, but one thing is very clear. we cannot continue as we have. we need to change and we need to get started on it ASAP in a very big way and that will cost money. where else will we get it?

 

How will you provide incentives without paying for them?

It's simple, you can do both:

1. Raise the gas tax as the USA Today Editorial suggests.
2. Use those taxes to pay for tax credits on plug-ins and other alternative fuel vehicles.

Then you get the best of both worlds:

1. Raise revenue to pay for road/infrastructure maintenance.
2. Provide additional incentives to reduce our oil imports.