Ray's Modest Proposal: A Graduated Gasoline Tax

The low income people are really paying already. If there were any public transportation that had some kind of handicapped entry, I would take it. The drivers have a lot of excuses, they need them, they can't tell you that the bus company doesn't care. If I could carry my own ramp, they probably wouldn't let me carry it with me anyway. Also, the driver insists that you have your handicapped placard or paperwork with you, like they can't tell that I can barely move.

YOu have heard of the ADA havent you??? Its mandatory on just about everything including public transportation. Dont know what city you live in that has a bus system w/o ramps but its time you found an attorney and SUED!!!

Does your city have a federal courthouse? Found out where it is; see if you can file yo self and the fees can be waived by a form at the court that you can ask for. If you can ask cartalk to give you our home email address; we would love to help you. We live in the Denver metro area and we have a somewhat active wheelchair commnunity to deal with the ADA nonsense though its still not perfect.

Ihave listened to the Car Talk brothers for years, and really enjoy them. But, I view their tendency to desire the government to solve all our problems to be THEIR DARK SIDE.

They are the remnants of a country which had the government regulate everything. it was called the Soviet Empire, and today there are Russian women who marry Mexican men for a better life. Seriously, for those who think I am making this up.

Back in 1973, there was a fuel crunch, and people wanted the government to DO SOMETHING. In my college class I had a book which gave the figures for dramatically cutting fuel consumption by government interference.

if you grind the economy to a halt with dramatic increase in fuel prices, everything stops, including all research into new technologies. At this time, it is still not practical to use hydrogen, and hybrids don't yet pay for themselves. But, there has been a tremendous increase in knowledge since 1973, none of which would have happened if the government had killed the eoconomy to cut consumption.

When the market fixes problems, there is an orderly shift as one item becomes rare, and another becomes more desirable. As gas prices raise naturally, more people will voluntarily shift to toy cars or more public transit, and the eoonomy will continue to be healthy.

Agreed........

"I'm from the the goverment and I am here to help you"

One of the three great lies in society!!!!!

c

The "free market" does not work for petroleum products. We are at or near "Peak Oil". The "Market" can no longer expand to meet demand. Since prices are sure to rise tax or no, this vast revenue stream (we burn 45 million gallons of gasoline a day, 60% of which is imported) leaves our country and into sometimes not so friendly hands. If we tax ourselves to reduce consumption, the money stays here so we can spend it on ourselves. If we give it to the Arabs, it's gone forever. The National Debt and the Budget Deficit are at record levels. A new tax that has the side benefit of reducing petroleum imports makes sense. "Low Income" people could file for relief on their Federal Income tax. When we import over 60% of our oil, we NEED to instill some pain at the pump. Gasoline demand has increased 2% so far this year over last year. There is a lot of whining at the pumps, but no real pain. $6/gallon gas, $95 fill-ups, should reduce gasoline demand somewhat...People will spend their last dollar on three things and gasoline is one of those things..Let me know when the high-school parking lots start to thin out...

While I agree with you in principle, I do have to point out that we do not get the vast majority of our imported oil for "the Arabs," but we do get lots of oil from "the Canadians." Just a clarification, it doesn't really change the conclusion.

LOL, my daughter's high school parking lot looks like a BMW dealer's lot, it might take more than $6/gallon to thin that place out (the kids already pay about $50 per year for a parking permit, and most of them live within about half a mile of the school.)

Yes indeed, Canada & Mexico are our biggest suppliers, but they don't set the price. OPEC, controlled by Saudi Arabia, determines the "market" price. We need to get serious about reducing demand of a product we don't control. A punitive gas tax works. Vehicle mileage standards need to be raised too..

If we keep simply printing dollars to pay for our oil, one day soon those dollars won't be worth anything and Americans savings will be wiped out. Never in history, NEVER, has printed paper money held its value very long...The people who control the printing presses just don't know when to stop..

Of the top five countries that the US imports its oil from, three of them, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela are neither politically stable nor friendly to the US. No one country produces as much oil as the US imports.

As for those other countries in the ticking time bomb/powder keg known as the Middle East (Persian Gulf), they're selling all they can to Europe, Japan, China, and India. If something happens to stop or significantly cut the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, those countries will come begging and bidding to Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, and Venezuela.

I believe the most accurate understanding of free markets is that they do SOME things remarkably well; in other situations they may get to the right answer eventually, but at a HUGE cost. Fossil fuels falls into the latter. It's easy to understand when you think about where most dollars go when oil hits $100, then $200 a barrel -- the petro-states closely associated with forces and ideas opposed to free markets and free anything else. You can turn this over to free markets all by themselves, but you won't like the result. I am 100% in favor of Ray's proposal, and history will show it is indeed "modest."

By calling it a "modest proposal" are you comparing this idea to Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"? If so, you should consider that Swift was using satire. He didn't really think the English landlords should eat Irish babies. He was simply trying to demonstrate that if the English landlords were going to continue to expliot the Irish, they were just as guilty as if they had eaten babies.

So if you are simply trying to stir up discussion on ways to conserve oil, OK. If you really think that any elected official has a chance of enacting your idea, you should open a window in the shop. You have obviously been breathing too much car exhaust.

Government should NEVER have the right to control any part of the economy.

Why is that?

Mainly because every effort the government makes to try to control the economy always has side effects which make it worse:

- Price controls cause shortages of the controlled product.

- Minimum wage controls cause job shortages.

Second, it violates human rights.

Minimum wage controls cause job shortages. 

Wha wha what? That has not been the case here in Florida. All of the conservatives said that when Florida raised its minimum wage and it hasn't been the case. Our economy continues to grow.

Minimum wage controls prevent low wage workers from being exploited. Would you please explain how minimum wage laws violate human rights? I enthusiastically await your cogent response.

You are brilliant, Jeremy. I think I'll throw my Economics degree out the window. In fact, I think the state of Florida is not being compassionate enough. I recommend an immediate increase in the minimum wage to $35.00 per hour. This would show how much we care. Would not cost any jobs. And wouldn't increase the cost of living to anyone.
The fact is that the cost of gasoline or anything else has effects at the margin. This means that there is someone who has to make decisions about how much to spend on food, health care, sanitation, etc. Most don't have a choice as to how much to spend on getting to work and the grocery store(at least in the short run).
When these at the margin chose to, or are compelled to, spend less on the things that improve their health and life, they will die more frequently and have shorter lives.
Now if you are what we call an 'Old line Lefty', your position is, "That's okay, we must sacrifice all we mus for equality."
The other position is, "We need to do something to thin the heard anyway." If you are a social Darwinist, there are definitely arguments you can make for that view.
I happen to love my neighbors. And when ever possible, I either work for the poor or I volunteer for the poor. I want them to have as good a standard of living as possible.
Unlike every other country in the world, here the poor are very likely to have an automobile(and a refrigerator, and a TV, and air conditioning)and use it to access employment.
To consciously make these people's life more difficult is immoral on a level a cannot imagine for an informed person.
Peace and Liberty,
Matt

That's right, they can eat cake, Matt.

If you think minimum wage keeps workers from being exploited, think again. You are dreaming! The companies have to raise the product prices to get the money to pay the minimum wage. So the worker still can't buy any more. And some employers have to cut jobs to pay the other employees the higher wage.

Did you think a minimum-wage fairy would magically produce more money to pay the workers?

Put the blame where it belongs: Government is taking 72 percent of the total economy in high taxes! That's why nobody can afford anything.

And these two idiots want to give government more money to waste!

"Government should NEVER have the right to control any part of the economy." 

Then maybe we should stop paying the oil industry $BILLIONs in subsidies. While we're at it, we should stop spending $TRILLIONs waging wars to provide security for their pumping sites and shipping lanes.

After that we can start talking about a free economy, how much a gallon of gas really costs us, and the fairness of consumer taxes.

If you think we are waging wars to provide for oil, you need to come back to the planet earth.

If there was no oil in Iraq, there would be no U.S. troops in Iraq..