More Calls for a Higher Gas Tax
By Christian Probasco, 1-03-09
A few things make this story timely. First, I just filled my gas tank for $1.33/gallon. Also, Flying J, the big truck stop chain I once worked for and from whom I bought my fuel while I was driving over the road, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, Dec. 22.
Flying J is (was?) one of the 20 largest privately-owned companies in the United States, according to an article in the Waco Tribune. In the last couple of weeks it has defaulted on loans worth $200 and $120 million. The article says Flying J may have lost money on the oil futures market by locking in a high purchasing prices just before the market, um, tanked. So that should give you an idea how much and how quickly things have changed.
Next, Ray Magliozzi, of public radio’s ”Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers” show has endorsed the idea
“This new tax,” says Magliozzi, “would generate between 50 and 100 billion dollars every year for the treasury. That money could be used to help rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges, and develop new technologies for more fuel-efficient cars.”
Magliozzi also wants the money to be used by GM and Ford to build a “high speed train infrastructure between major cities.”
New West’s owner, Jonathan Weber, endorsed the idea back on Dec. 6. Michael Kinsley of Time and Slate Magazines said it was time to raise the tax on Dec. 11. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been a champion of the gas tax for a while now . And Dave Demerjian of Wired Magazine endorsed it on Dec. 18.
“We’ve already shown we can live with gas at $4 a gallon (less than half what some European countries saw during the price spikes last summer) without inviting the apocalypse,” says Demerjian, “That pretty much shoots down the argument that people won’t stand for higher gas prices.”
Europe actually lowered its consumption of gasoline by 710,000 barrels a day between 1992 and 2008, according to Demerjian. The have also shrunk their cars.
Weber agrees with Magliozzi on where the money should be used but adds that it could also be harnessed “to help fund the various bailouts and public works programs that are supposed to get us out of a recession.”
The gas tax would be regressive. But Kinsley says it could be offset by cuts in the payroll tax, or FICA, which he describes as a “tax on job creation.” However, he is vague on the details about where congress would then get more money to pay for social security, which is partly funded by FICA.
According to its proponents, the tax would lower our dependence on foreign oil. It would spur development of alternative energy sources and proceeds from the tax could be used to that effect.
Not surprisingly, Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the libertarian CATO institute released a policy analysis in 2007 calling for the complete elimination of the gas tax. Their argument addresses the premises for raising the tax. If you want to lower tailpipe emissions, they say, punish the emitters. If you want to sock it to the unsavory regimes which are selling us oil, your approach is like “taking out a shotgun to kill a mosquito at 50 yards. You may or may not kill the mosquito, but you’re sure to hit a lot of unintended targets when you pull the trigger.” Any tax high enough (cripplingly high!) to hurt those foreign regimes will also hurt our own economy and that of Mexico and Canada and the U.K. But not for long, because we’re dealing with a world market, and the regimes we don’t like will eventually find buyers.
“Perfectly internalizing motor vehicle externalities,” say Taylor and Van Doren, “would likely make the economy less efficient--not more--by inducing motorists into even more (economically) inefficient mass transit use.”
“There is no market failure associated with oil depletion,” they say, “If oil becomes more scarce over time, prices will rise to reflect that scarcity and resources will be allocated efficiently.” What’s more, higher prices will spur development of huge oil deposits “only lightly tapped at the moment because of high extraction costs.”
“Unlike contractual solutions, governmental solutions have the dubious distinction of being more expensive not just most of the time, but all the time. That is, the ‘alternatives’ to fossil fuels are more expensive than conventional fossil fuels, even when the latter prices are at peak, which is, of course, why such ‘alternatives’ are not embraced without government subsidy or coercion.”
Middle Eastern regimes could pay for their own security, say Taylor and Van Doren, and we could quit our military adventuring in that region, and the price of gas might actually go down. It doesn’t make sense, according to them, to tack on our military costs as a subsidy for oil. Furthermore, “there is no correlation between Persian Gulf oil revenues and terrorist activities.”
Taylor and Van Doren mention a road mile tax as a better solution. Ominously, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski is pushing his state’s legislature to adopt just such a measure.
“As Oregonians drive less and demand more fuel-efficient vehicles,” reads the governor’s website, “it is increasingly important that the state find a new way, other than the gas tax, to finance our transportation system.”
Kulongoski suggests affixing a GPS system to cars, which would record miles driven. “Eventually,” reads an article in the Albany Democrat-Herald, “GPS devices would have to start being built into cars.”
Now is the perfect time to enact a new national gasoline tax. Gas now is priced less than half what is was only four months ago. Adding a 50-cent to $1.00 a gallon gas tax would raise gas prices, but they’d still be much less than the summer highs.
As columnist Thomas Friedman has stated, “Americans will change their long-term energy habits, and companies will develop green products, only if they are certain the price of gasoline will not go back down.” For our long-term health, getting re-addicted to oil and gas guzzlers is one of the dumbest things we could do.
We squandered the last 30 years of innovation in America, ever since Reagan rolled back plans to make the US auto fleet more efficient. Detroit built large vehicles based on their huge profit margin, and convinced us all that we needed SUVs and Dodge Ram Chargers to drive to the corner store to pick up some milk. Thus we became addicted to cheap $1.00 a gallon oil for almost three decades. And now we have to pay the price.
It’s time for us to suck it up, enact a gas tax, and pay the true environmental and social costs of our addiction to oil. It’s like starting a new exercise program—you whine when it starts, and it hurts for awhile, but the long-term benefits are going to be worth it.
-Jon Chever
It would cost the equivalent of 60 cents a gallon to charge and drive an electric car. The electricity to charge the car could come from solar or wind generated electricity. If all gasoline cars, trucks, and suv’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota. Why don't we use some of the billions in bail out money to bail us out of our dependence on foreign oil? This past year the high cost of fuel so seriously damaged our economy and society that the ripple effects will be felt for years to come. Why not invest in setting up some alternative energy projects on a national basis, create clean cheap electricity, create millions of badly needed new green collar jobs, and get out from under our dependence on foreign oil. What a win -win situation that would be. There is a great new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence NOW by Jeff Wilson. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in alternative energy.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 1-03-09Europeans have had a high, behavior modification gas tax for decades. I believe they are paying 7 to 9 bucks a gallon presently. Yet their public transit ridership has been static. And their automobile use is increasing and more Europeans are moving out the the suburbs from the inner cities but their autos are staying small.I don't know how they spend the revenue generated by their gas tax. The better solution is a road mileage fee calculated by miles driven on what ever road or street you use, the money going directly to the agency responsible for that road or street's maintenance. The fee would increase if you were on a road during periods of congestion. As mentioned by others on this thread, There are GPS systems that are now being developed and tested that can make this fee for mileage on a particular road at a particular time possible. On the carrot side of behavior modification instead of bailing out auto companies the government could offer 0 percent interest loans on any small electric hybrid plug in that costs less than 12 thousand bucks, with a 20 percent discount for those earning less that 20 thousand buck a year. This would incentivise production of small economic vehicles and help low income folks become more mobile and productive.
Comment By jedediah Redman, 1-03-09Forget the interstate.
Spend the new tax money on public transportation. If there are farmers who need a break for their tractors, etc., write it into the new law. Let the Interstate fall into disrepair except where it is needed to provide transport until the railroads can be rebuilt.
Then use taxes to drive the private automobile into retirement...
There is a way to bring this nation out of the depression we are in. Look back to how it was done before WWII, and this nation was deep in the depression then, with bail outs etc. not really giving it the start. Then came along the war. Try learning about this great nation's history to learn what we should be doing and what works. This nation was forced into Producing products to fight the war. We developed industries, opened up the natural rescources, and in order to have enough employees they had to hire the women. In this case it would be the men. Open up the natural rescources such as drilling for oil, mining, logging, coal developing, new refineries etc. We have the technology now to make it clean and environmentally safe to do this. Put this nation on a production base instead of service and socialism. Is the younger generation afraid of hard work? As I watch many I can't help but think maybe they are used to being given everything and really don't know how to do an honest days work. I'm sure that there are many who want to work honestly, support their families and have a nice homes, but there are many I can't help but wonder about. There are to many who do the blame game instead of looking ahead to see what can be done, and doing it.
This climate change, global warming is really a lie as the changes have been going on for thousands of years, warming and cooling trends. Go into the Antiartica ice samples the Corp. is pulling out of the ice. It shows warm and cold trends even before man had any polluting ways. Are we so gullable as to allow people like Al Gore be our Bible of facts. Sorry people he is a human being just like we are and makes mistakes. Check it out.
Gee, cindy, you are one smart cookie!
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 1-05-09Yes she is!
Comment By Charles, 1-05-09Well at least the article mentioned that this is a regressive tax. That is a start considering a lot of the articles that I read today did not mention this. Maybe a good idea if you refund the tax elsewhere. But it is so hard to raise taxes on gasoline when the economy is doing so poorly. Instead of a gas tax, what about a tax rebate on fuel-efficient cars? Maybe not the best idea, but I just don't buy that the government is going to make this "tax-neutral" for everyone.
On a side note, I went a head and bought my gas for the next year. With gas prices this low, maybe if they do increase taxes on gas I might not be totally underwater when gas prices rise. I searched online and found this site, <a >petrofix.com</a>. Up to 2 years at today's price. Not too bad.
Cindy wrote:
"Are we so gullable as to allow people like Al Gore be our Bible of facts". Cindy, in the mid nineties, congress talked about requiring unions to get rank and file aproval to use their dues money to support a candidate. They ended up declaring " giving us the right to decide where our money is spent is denying us our first ammendment rights".
What were you saying about being gullible?
I voted for Gore but I think he's dead wrong about anthropogenic global warming.
This article was printed from www.newwest.net at the following URL: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/more_calls_for_a_higher_gas_tax/C564/L564/