A Gas Tax Now Could Save Us in the Future

the unfortunate thing about raising the price of gas, is it will cripple the car-crazy american economy.

i read a study that said that a permanent rise in gas to $3 a gallon would put about 2-4 million americans out of work.

during the spike in prices during the memorial day weekend, the news was full of stories of small businesses nearly shutdown because their transportation costs were making them lose money.

but i still have to agree that if we dont start now, we are just fooling our selves. i still say that financing mass transit and alternative energy sources should be done now. by raising the price of gas through taxes, we will force the oil companies to give up some of their 150 BILLION DOLLAR profit they collected last year.

and before you believe the propaganda by exxon and co, let it be known that the 43 billion they put away for future exploration and research was not part of the profit figure.

 

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Yes, the US is addicted to cheap fuel. And like a person with a dangerous drug addiction, it's very important to break it even though it is a very hard thing to do.

I believe that taxing gas so as to more accurately match its cost (including the wars and environmental costs that are currently financed by other taxes) will lead consumers to use it more efficiently which will ultimately be good for the economy. Don't forget that those other taxes can be lowered (or maybe the national debt can be reduced) and also the price of crude will fall due to lower demand.

Many experts believe that if we'd increased the tax on gas years ago the price would be about the same as it is today. We can't change the past but we can work on it now before things get even worse.

 

well we have gone too long and too fat that there is really no other choice now.

unfortunately, unlike a large portion of europe, people on the fringe will not be able to rely on mass transit in most areas of the US.

i still think that we should tax the gas 50 cents a gallon and take all that money and put it into a NATIONAL mass transit system. whether it be maglev or trains or what ever, we need something.

too much gas is wasted simply because of congestion. building more freeways wont do any good especially since most areas dont have efficient enough surface streets to support the freeways we have now.

 

[img=right:a9ed541d53]http://priuschat.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/news.bbc.co.uk_olmedia_930000_images__933965_fuel_duty3_300.gif[/IMG]This is what our government has done over the years - the price of petrol has gradually been going up thanks to tax. Here's a link to an old BBC article about it

As you can see from the graph, the vast majority of our petrol cost is tax. This has one very positive benefit - we're not terribly susceptible to minor shifts in oil costs like the ones at the moment, although it does mean the chancellor is less able to keep increasing the tax while the oil price is rising.

As you may note in the sidebar to that article - not everyone's happy about there being so much tax. :roll: We had some protests in 2000.

 

yep, england is doing it right as is most of europe. the only way to live with inline energy costs is to wean the americans off of their wasteful ways. that takes time, and the oil companies reacting to the rise in gas taxes, raised the price of gas on their own which in effect caused a public uproar when new gas taxes were suggested in many states.

the clinton administration raised gas taxes to pay for funding on alternative energy sources and public transportation. well bush lowered the taxes back down to pre 1985 levels and the oil companies promptly raised prices 27% to offset over 60% of the tax savings. (i guess the oil companies felt that their 150 Billion $ profits were not enough!!)

i wont even mention what bush did to the program that would have brought hybrid technology to the mainstream...