Sure, if you have a 20-yr time horizon, it can be done. But why? It's an inefficient use of a labor pool and creates lower quality businesses. If you have a 20 yr time horizon, why not look at more efficient solutions like hybrids and electric vehicles? Over that time frame, virtually every vehicle on the road will be replaced, so you can cut gas usage substantially that way without all the negative effects of the tax-based solution.
These are good ideas. But how do you propose we get people to stop wasting and start conserving if not by making it too expensive to be wasteful? We can't simply continue to say, "we should be doing..." because nothing will ever change.
I'm definitely in favor of getting rid of our most inefficient vehicles. There is no excuse for driving a vehicle that gets 14 MPG. But even if we changed the standards now, it would be at least several years before the changes took effect, and that still doesn't remove old vehicles from the road.
We mandate what people can buy all the time. Houses have various standards and structural requirements. Cars have safety requirements and emissions standards. Food have limits as to what they can contain. Toys have limits on how much lead can be in them. Movies have restrictions on what ages can see what. etc etc. We do it because we believe that these regulations improve our society as a whole. It's no different here.
Good points. Instead of the $1 tax hike across the board, simply tax the vehicles that consume the most fuel.
Problems with energy usage and resource depletion are caused by more than just our vehicles. While those things would certainly help what will really make a change is an overall change in our development. Also given the problems with developing an infrastructure for electric vehicles you might be looking at a time frame as long as it will take to signifigantly change our development patterns. Another thing regarding changing our development patterns is that many people don't realize that our auto dependent sprawl development is due very much to government forces building the highways and utilities and also modifying tax laws to allow us to have sprawl. If we shifted our spending priorities or even stopped spending money to extend out a far flung utility grid we could do a lot to change development without spending a lot of money. As far as businesses with communication technology a lot of work can, and is, decentralized. I work quite a bit from home and know several other people who do also. While telecommuting isn't possible for everyone a signifigant amount of white collar jobs could be done remotely.
The $1 per gallon tax is taxing the vehicles that actually consume the most gas. In other words, a Toyota that gets 30 MPG and uses 100 gallons of fuel a month will pay the exact same as a Hummer that gets 10 MPG and uses 100 gallons of fuel a month. I think Space Ghost's suggestion is to tax the Hummer more than the Toyota.
I think the tax would be fair for everyone involved. It would be logistically impossible for us to tax the gas for a Hummer at one rate and that for a Prius at another. However, by and large, the Hummer driver will consume more gas than the Prius driver and as such, will be taxed more. As it should be. We need to get away from gasoline as our primary source of energy for transportation.
You're missing the entire thread topic. Anyone who walks up to the pump pays an additional dollar. There are people who make a living by driving. The same people deliver goods, especially the ones in the transportation trucks who deliver your munchies to you. Who do you think is going to pay for that additional dollar? You will with the price of goods. People who drive for a living WANT a vehicle that consumes as least possible fuel. Its very simple. Target only those who have vehicles with inefficient fuel consumption. Don't punish everyone else.
It would be very simple to tax them differently. You simply add a tax to the cost of a fuel inefficient vehicle and you charge a tax every year folks register their vehicle. Don't tax them per gallon of gas, tax them based on fuel (in)efficiency at purchase and license renewal time.
Exactly. The supposed "sin" here is not driving - it's driving inefficiently. So the tax to reduce that sin should target the the right problem. Taxing gas penalizes people for driving - not necessarily for driving inefficiently. Taxing the gas-guzzlers taxes the inefficiency instead.
As someone else point out, we do it all the time. Last time I checked, it was not legal for me to go out and buy cocaine. There are laws against that because enough people believe that the negatives of allowing that product outweigh the benefits of allowing people complete freedom over what they consume.
The government already mandates what kinds of firearms, medicines, recreational drugs, sex(prostitution). That's just the sinful stuff. They mandate the kind of cars we drive, the tint, airbags, crash tests, emission standards. All the stuff that makes our vehicles more expensive that not everybody wants.
Wrong. A gas tax would tax EVERYBODY, even the guy that owns a Prius. Sure it would tax him less. But it still taxes him. Targeting the wasteful vehicles through enhanced sales taxes and registration fees is a way to get rid of the bathwater without chucking the baby out the window too.
I can understand the difference in the argument between taxing a vehicle based on its fuel efficiency and taxing fuel but I still think the idea of taxing the fuel is better. For the posters arguing that many people still need to use vehicles for work consider that most work vehicles are going to be less fuel efficient than many used for basic transportation, a truck by nature is less fuel efficient than a car, so you will still end up penalizing those who have to use the truck. Also in terms of punishing businesses by raising a tax on ineficient vehicles you're going to put a much larger cost on them by compelling them to buy a new vehicle rather than allowing them to keep the old one but figure out ways to limit driving. Also consider that an inefficient vehicle that's only driven rarely is likely to do less damage than even an efficient vehicle often yet under the vehicle tax even a pickup that is only used once a week will still bear a tax burden. I think a usage tax on fuel is going to be a better way of encouraging fuel economy while also leading to other changes regarding general automobile use and efficient resource use than taxing cars with poorer fuel economy. Its one that can be addressed without requiring signifigant changes in technologies or compel people to buy more cars and thus use up even more resources.
I'm against sin taxes anyway, but if you're going to do it, do it evenly. If some guy owns a Civic and drives 50,000 miles per year, he's doing much more damage to roads and polluting much more than the guy who owns a Hummer and drives it 5000 miles per year. Fuel usage correlates to a very rough approximation of damage to infrastructure and the environment. (Slightly underestimated for small cars, slightly overestimated for large trucks, way overestimated for motorcycles.) Banning cars is even worse. I have in the past owned a 12-mpg truck (1989 Ford F250). It sat in my driveway most of the time. I owned it for 3 years and put less than 10,000 miles on it, most of them towing something. I did way more damage to infrastructure and the enviroment at the time with my little 4-cyl Ford Ranger that I drove most of the time.
I think the term luxury tax fits better. Even as complicated as our taxing system is now, its still more efficient than flat taxing ideas like this. Its a great idea, only if we did not need automobiles. The fact remains that we need them. Liberals are always after the rich, but they always implement ideas/tax that only hurt the poor/working class and a slight PITA to the rich. The rich can afford that extra $1 per gallon but the working class will struggle. Business owners will then pass the cost of the extra fuel to the consumer, and once again, the working class will have to pay higher prices for things they MUST have. Break it down - Person A: $40,000 a year salary drives a civic for 30,000 miles a year. He will pay an est $1100 in fuel extra a year PLUS a rough est 10% in increase cost of goods. He could pay an extra 3000 a year for this tax increase, but you know he won't get a tax rebate back for that amount. Person B: $100,000 a year and drives a 15 MPG vehicle for 20,000 miles a year. His vehicle will probably cost him 40k ... but he will pay about 1300 extra in taxes a year. Who do you really think is going to get hurt here??? As far as infrastructure repair, its delivery trucks that tear up the roads.
1) Find me a transportation truck that can get 30 MPG 2) Fuel is the #1 factor in the cost of transportation. Do you really think trucking firms are going to keep a inefficient truck in their fleet? 3) Diseal engines are much more efficient than gas engines At the end of the day, commercial vehicles will still get a tax incentive for the $1 increase and cost of good STILL will go up
