Do you believe there is a correlation between people driving and people dieing in car wrecks? If so, why do you support people driving?
Exactly. One minute, people scream about needing a progressive tax system...the next the same people want to enact a tax that harms those they just saved from a bad income tax. A little inconsistent.
Being more fuel efficient weans us off our dependence on foreign countries. That is what you fail to grasp. You want to build more nuclear power plants go for it I am talking about more fuel efficient vehicles that can be sold overseas. Also more solar and wind technology that can be exported. Now if you can find an American company that will employ more Americans by going to foreign countries and building Nuclear power plants there then sure. Otherwise I want to rebuild our manufacturing base, fix our trade deficit, create jobs, be the world leader in alternative energy. This is accomplished by alternative energy tech not nuclear power plants.
And you want to use force (by means of tax incentives) to "rebuild our manufacturing base"? You don't find that unethical? What if tomorrow the government decides Americans need to watch less tv because tv is making us dumb? If you reason they can raise taxes on oil because they know what's best for everybody, then why not tv?
And here we go with the "gubment gonna control us all" line of crap. Why do these delusions manifest themselves so easily with the right? Honestly I don't think a gas tax is the best way to do this though it may be the most effective. The best way would have been back in the 80s instead of blowing billions on worthless defense spending instead invest it in alternative energy tech. Heck in the 70s during the oil crisis that should have clued us in that we were not in control and need to move in another direction. We needed this: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/06/tesla-loan/ decades ago. GM has had electric car tech since the 60s. Instead we invest in Star Wars and Trident Submarines while the national debt exploded and our manufacturing base eroded. We can't go back in time so we need to catch up to where we should be if idiots like Reagan were never elected.
It has nothing to do with government really. I just don't want to treat my fellow man like that. Maybe you and I think a person should try to use less gas, but that doesn't give me the right to force/threaten others to. A society where everyone is trying to use government to force their morals on others seems really ****ty to me. How about you live by your morals and I will live by mine and neither of us will try to force the other? There are ways to solve the oil-money-going-to-terrorist-or-violent-governments issue without forcing moral opinion.
To me it's not to use less gas, but to offset the costs to repair the road infrastructure. Budgets are already in the crapper.
are you sure it would bring in more money(I have no idea)? If you are deterring people from using gas then won't less gas be bought and thus possibly less revenue?
It brings in more revenue for the people who drive only as needed, and for those that overuse and find the tax to be a bit much they will reduce usage. This reduced usage should reduce the wear on the roads which gets to the same problem of bringing in revenue.
Our manufacturing base did not erode because of Ronald Reagan. It is pretty recent that things like furniture started being produced overseas. This is the one good point that Ross Perot made - when he warned about all these jobs going overseas. Last time I checked, that was four years after Reagan took office. As for military spending...perhaps you are too young to remember the Cold War.
Many conservatives, such as myself, believe the government has no right to certify marriages. As far as I know, the government does it for two reasons: 1) tax incentives for married couples - this is obviously unethical and stupid 2) inheritance - there are was to handle this issue better then having marriages certified. Your notion that Republicans are the party of "no gay marriage" is inaccurate to me. If many Republicans had there way (Ron Paul, Jim DeMint) the government wouldn't acknowledge marriages and thus gays could marry all they want. The other two are dealing with the right to life (the most primary of rights) and thus having nothing to do with moral opinion.
The state and federal governments both need to raise the gasoline tax. Texas has a huge deficit, as does the USA. We need to raise revenue. I think bumping up the gax tax 20 or 30 cents is a pretty obvious thing to do. You could have it go up over, say, three years in order to spread out the impact. Our gas is incredibly cheap compared to most of the rest of the world. We've had a good ride. It's time to grow up.
Pretty easy to say when you are financially secure and it won't impact your life. But if you are living in a city like houston, have a long commute, and living paycheck to paycheck, it is likely your car is older and gets poor mpg. It is unlikely you have cash to upgrade or change to a smaller car that gets better mpg. Taxes like this are not proportional because they hurt the lower income harder.
Is anyone who is advocating this aware of what this would do to the prices of general commodities? We'd have inflation across every sector that uses any kind of trucking/hauling in the supply chain. Not going to hurt the poor? People don't think food prices won't be affected?
Aren't most durable goods shipped by rail anyway? And for perishable goods, aren't most distribution centers relatively regional or even local? Trucks should not be the cheapest way to transmit goods over a few hundred miles.
