18.5 cents is not helping.

No, not your vote, red neck truck driving hill-billy's votes, yep they want to buy them. If you have been totally irresponsible in your choice of car you get the biggest reward so how are the environmental credentials of these clowns looking?
How will this move help the USA meet its CO2 emission targets?

 

Clowns to the left of me
Clowns to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle
It's a confederacy of dunces
Who would offer 18 cents
As a bribe, at the cost
Of future infrastructure

 

The news of a petty break of $.185 a gallon only pissed me off! What a friggen joke! I'll save a wopping $3.33 filling up my Van, a whole $1.85 filling my Civic, a great big $1.48 filling my Prius! Great that total comes out to $6.66, it's the work of the Devil I tell ya!

 

Clinton Gas-Tax Proposal Criticized

Economists Share Obama's View

By Alec MacGillis and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 1, 2008; Page A01

A growing chorus -- including a top congressional Democrat -- labeled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's proposal for suspending the federal gasoline tax ineffective and shortsighted yesterday, even as she continued to paint Sen. Barack Obama as insensitive to drivers' woes for not endorsing the plan.

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

A holiday from gas prices?

Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have called for a "gas tax holiday" this summer to offer commuters and vacationers some release from spiraling gas prices. They have urged Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a step that could cost the government about $10 billion in revenues. The only major candidate to oppose the idea is Barack Obama, who voted for a similar measure in Illinois eight years ago. Obama now says that consumers will derive little benefit from the tax moratorium. So who is right?

A holiday from gas prices? - Fact Checker

 

Makes as much sense as rescuing the national economy by giving us some of our own taxes back... at HUGE frictional expense.

What problem does removing the tax solve exactly? I mean besides political popularity with the short-sighted?

 

You can only drink so many lattes ,so
who needs a few extra dollars ?
Imagine driving an 18 wheeler and paying $4.25 every 6 miles.$1000 to fill the tank.
Do you suppose truck drivers might like to save a few hundred dollars a day?
Do you ever consume any product which was delivered by an 18 wheeler?
By the way Hillarys proposal would be paid for with a windfall tax on the oil companies.

 

It won't be $0.18, because the gas/oil industry will raise the price. So maybe you're looking at $0.10 or $0.11 if you're lucky.

Some people are too stupid to do the math.

 

Good point. I had not considered the 18 wheeler difference. But the windfall tax is a terrible idea. No company is just going to say, "Gee whillickers, I guess we will just have to suck it up and swallow that tax increase." A new tax is the same as the global price of oil rising. You will see it at the pump.

 

I don't think it's fair that those that use the most and do the most get back more than we get. I'm gonna start a grass roots movement to make sure this windfall is redistributed fairly amongst all of us!

Wildkow

p.s. Posted before in the "Commonsense" thread. . .

“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.†- Nancy Pelosi (D) - 2006

"Democrats propose a Federal Gas Tax that will increase the cost of gas about $.50 per gallon." - John Dingle (D) - 2008

"The United States House of Representatives recently passed legislation that would raise taxes on oil companies. (March 2008) . . . There is only one problem with raising taxes on oil companies, who do you think will pay the price for this?"


This is too much someone please explain how raising taxes on gas and the gas companies wil lower the price of fuel?

Wildkow

 

No it won't, because a Windfall Profits Tax won't pass, and she knows it, yet thats what she tells her supporters for votes. The gas tax won't make a difference, because the price of gas will quickly fill the 18 cent void, and the government will be $10 Billion in the hole for transportation improvements.

 

So let me work this out.
Less tax on fuel
More tax on oil companies to make up the shortfall
Up goes the pre-tax price of fuel

Where is the savings?

This reminds me of when a goods and services tax was introduced here.
There was no tax on services like mechanics or plumbers labour, after all he paid income tax.
There was a 17% tax on the wholesale price goods like car parts.
The markup on car parts is often 100%
therefore a GST of 10% is equal to a wholesale tax of 20% but people thought the GST would reduce the price they had to pay. Did I have some arguments about this with people.

 

There isn't any. It's a gimmick.

The price will go up and become more profit. AND you lose the revenue to pay for what the tax was originally designated for.

 

I am sure there are lots of Americans who will take the $.18/gallon break and say thank you - especially those on fixed incomes and those making less than you. High gas/fuel prices hurt the poor and fixed income citizens the worst - so i am all for it.

If the Feds lead, maybe some of the states will follow too - increasing the savings on the already overtaxed people of this country.

Windfall profits of the oil companies - let them spend in on increased drilling in ANWR and off the coast lines and building new refineries and oil from coal and shale technology.

The Dems have built themselves a true pickle - they like not letting the oil companies drill and build new refineries and yet their biggest constituents are hurt most by the higher price of fuel -- all supply and demand -- imagine if we had ANWR on line now - and other sources??

 

What are these poor, fixed income people doing owning and driving a car regularly? First, lets look at owning. I'll be generous and say that owning a car only costs them, on average, $100 per month (car payments, repair, oil changes, whatever). Now lets tack on 30 gallons/month (after all, it's not a Prius) again being generous. Thats another $100. So these people, who are poor or living on very tight fixed incomes, are spending $200 or more per month to drive their car in order to save $5.55 with this gas tax holiday? I could walk to and from work every day this summer, take the bus every day during the winter, and probably end up spending half or less of what they spend in order to "save" that $5.55.

 

The problem I see with this is that long-distance trucking tends to result in more road maintenance and pollution than most other forms of road use. I think it would be fairest if the people who drove the least also paid the least, and that people who drove the most contributed the most to defraying the resultant expenses. Most methods of funding transportation infrastructure - like insurance and general taxation - don't work this way, but gasoline taxes do.

 

prices are set by supply and demand. Gas is the price it is because that price make supply equal demand. Since refinery production is already at maximum eliminating the gas tax will not lower the price because if it did demand would increase and there would be a shortage of gas.
The reason no more refineries are being built has nothing to do with government policy. Refineries are very expensive and worldwide oil production is starting to decline. There is no way for the oil companies to recoup their investment since in a few years there will not be enough oil being pumped from the ground to keep the current ones running at capacitly

 

The other issue is that although no totally new refineries have been built, existing ones have been substantially enlarged. This makes more sense, as the pipeline and port infrastructure already exists in those locations.