"I do not believe in taking money from Person A by force so it can be donated to Person B."

However, in this case, Person A does not have ANY money taken from them by force unless they choose to do so of their own free will.... And then how exactly are they being "forced"? No one is forcing them to consume more than an average amount of gasoline. They do so of their own free will.

You are not living in reality. My job involves driving from customer to customer. There is no other way. You can't predict the pattern, frequency or length of time. How on earth did you determine the average amount of gasoline ? My wife can tele-commute. Walk right out of bed to the screen and log in. When things break/fail somebody has to go fix it. I am not being "forced " to use gasoline, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. When the other way in invented and I have a real choice let me know, until then get back to reality. Oh - and I quote- "Also those who can't afford a car, will get back money from those of us who are better off" ! As far as I can tell when someone does that without my permission it's called STEALING.

"My job involves driving from customer to customer. There is no other way. You can't predict the pattern, frequency or length of time."

There are such jobs. There is a demand for such work and those who perform it will use a lot of expensive fuel. As the price of fuel goes up then the price of your product or service must go up, unless you care to eat the cost. Then the customer has to decide if the real cost, including fuel is worth the cost. Yes some jobs will go the way of the buggy whip manufacturers. Yes I feel for those who end up with a new job, but life is about change. Letting the true cost come to the table, allows for the free market system to do what it does best.

Great Idea...but here's the problem.

Making sure the tax is NOT used for anything else in any other way. I can't tell you how many times when I live in NY that a tax was added for a specific project...but that money was diverted to something else....but the tax stayed...in fact 10 years later another tax was added for the same project because there was no funding....HELLO..there was funding but the tax was diverted to something else. The feds have done this THOUSANDS of times....These "Ear Marks" i.e Special interests has gotten way out of hand....Now they'll have MORE money to spend...and they'll find a way to do it.

Oh no! Not another "let's force fuel conservation by usery taxation" post! Why not just send a bill every year directly to commuters for....say....$2000?

Clearly you don't live in an area where commuting is commonly necessary. If you did you would not be making such a suggestion.

We've had this discussion before. It's a bad idea. And "revenue neutral" and "tax" are mutually exclusive terms.

Sorry, but I have to adamantly disagree with this idea.

"Why not just send a bill every year directly to commuters for....say....$2000? "

Because that is the kind of thing we do now. It does nothing to encourage the reduction of fuel usage. It does not bring the question to the individual.

I would hope my plan would give more incentive to reduce their fuel cost. It would is a small way allow those who use more and pollute more, to pay back those (including themselves) some small part of the cost of pollution. We all suffer from pollution. From illness and reduced life of the paint on your home, to reduced farm production.

OK, problem...how do you track fuel purchases per person and rebate those taxes accordingly. That would require some kind of gas purchase tracking card or the input of your SSN everytime you fill up...not gonna happen! This would require millions of$$$ to implement and would require the cooperation of every gas station and new equipment for said stations. More $$$! Now, those who commute...that is a choice based on where you desire to live. I could have moved 2 min from my work, but I chose to live further away for family reasons. That was my choice, it's also my choice to drive as fuel efficient car as I could afford. Any commuter who drives an Urban Assault Vehicle (aka SUV) should not whine about fuel costs. They chose their means of travel and now have to live with it.

No, he's simply saying that you add a $0.50 tax to every gallon of gasoline, add up all the revenue for the year, and and give every taxpayer an equal cut of the money. That way folks who use less than average come out ahead and folks who use more than average come out behind.

How about just using receipts? We do this know for other deductions.

That is precisely wht we don't want to do; it will keeep the gas guzzlers guzzling! A tax collected like the road tax now charged goes into general revenue. In the case of a gas surtax, however, a certain amount should go into research for alternate energy, and public transit. Real wasters will get some benefit, of course through lower overall taxes. But the ones who waste least should benefit most.

Commercial vehicles and farmers get a tax rebate on their vehicles used for business only. That's different. Business often needs gas guzzlers to get the job done.

I agree with the idea of looking to create a business exception.

But then I look at the Hummer H1 that the local embroidery shop has as a "company" vehicle and get reminded of the gross abuses people are already committing of the current tax code and wonder how bad it would get when all of a sudden every vehicle becomes "work-related".

Maybe if we insisted that all work vehicles have solid rear axles, no a/c, black vinyl seats, etc.... :)

"Commercial vehicles and farmers get a tax rebate on their vehicles used for business only. That's different. Business often needs gas guzzlers to get the job done."

Actually I would recommend including them. Fuel is consumed by business just as it is consumed by individuals. Businesses make decisions about how they spend their money just as individuals do. We want businesses to make decisions that will reduce their cost and reduce their use of fuel.

Although not trivial light trucks and cars only comprise 40% of the US's oil consumption. I don't think this tax is the end all to addressing the overall problem.

There really is not as much of a limit to fuel supplies as people think, its really just a limit to inexpensive(current prices) fuel supplies.

I believe natural progression in prices and market will eventually drive conservation and consumer habits. There is an entire fleet of pretty efficient vehicles already being built elsewhere. The technology will trickle back here and we will purchase them.

Forcing anything is fruitless and not the nature of our country.

Assuming light cars and trucks comprise 40% of the US's oil consumption... Fortune claims US vehicles average 21 mpg, while in Europe, where they tax the heck out of fuel, the average is 36 mpg. Other numbers I have seen for the US put the number closer to 25 mpg. Say you move the fleet from 25 mpg to 36 mpg. You only need 69% of the amount of gas to do the same amount of transit. So you can reduce total US oil consumption by .4-.69*.4 = 12.2%.

That's not insignificant. That's the equivalent of 2 ANWR scale production fields.

In fact, that probably has more potential than any other single movement to improve the supply/demand situation.

Is it the end all solution? Nope.

But this proposed solution is better than taxing the heck out of gas and having it all go who knows where, or allowing the status quo, which simply promotes economic instability, dependence on foreign energy where the supplying country is hostile, etc....

A bump of $0.50 would never get through congress. I do believe we need to reduce our nation's dependence on imports. We would not be loosing so many young people in Iraq if it were not for our demand for oil.
Such a large bump would also bankrupt our american automobile manufactures. People would rush to thoes miny imports. You think our economy is bad now. Put another 200,000 auto workers out of work.
I believe we should send a message by advocating raising the gasoline tax a small amount ($0.10?)now and by addind $0.005 a month until the needed reduction in consumpyion is achieved. This would give american manufacturers time to retool their plants to produce those smaller hight fuel efficient vehicles people will be wanting down the road and allow people to use up the gas guzzlers they are driving.
People seem to think the price of gas is going to go down in the future. It is not. There is a finite amount of oil. The easy to aguire is already used up.
Use the income to pay down the debt from the Iraq war.

Taxes with the goal of controlling consumption has been effective in controlling the smoking on the state level, and I believe would bee effective under normal circumstances. A dedicated consumption tax is worthwhile.

But, with fuel prices increasing"without bound" from a variety of pressures including, speculation, devaluation of the dollar, security as encouraged by our foreign policy. and general greed, nmow is not the time. Right now we are swirling towards a resession spear heqaded by energy costs.

Europe encourages the use of diesel by taxation at a lower rate. this is worth while control. I now think we are in a crisis with with our national security at stake with all future wars propigated on the acquisition of energy.

As an independent and a bit of a libertarian, I never thought I would say this...it's in our national security interest for the Department of energy to nationalize the holdings of American based oil companies and at the very least, initiate price controls. We initiated govt. control over energy consumption duting times of war.....we shoud do it again. Our entire existence depends upon the proper despensation and development of energy sources, The private sector, which is driving us into "energy retrieval wars", and taken over our military industrial complex, has has failed us.

PS....please excuse in typing..recovering from eye surgery is a b...h ?

Mr. Mconn, you live in a make believe world. Oil prices are driven by world-wide demand; the US consumes 20-25% of the world total. A century ago countries went to war over resources, the Brithish Empire was a good example, and sending the US marines in to secure bananas in central America was accepted.

At this stage of globilization (the 21st century), no one country can control or set the price of any commodity. Any US company abroad that throws its weight around will be in danger of NATIONALIZATION. Mexico (1938) Venezuela (1970s), Saudi Arabia (1970), Ecuador, Bolivia, etc, etc, all nationalized US holdings, even without the threat of fixing prices.

I am as much a libertarian as you are, but the way for the government to control consumption is to tax consumption and rebate those taxes in the form of lower income taxes, and investments in research for alternative energy.

Countries that tax gasoline consumption sucessfully are: Great Britain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Swizerland, Iceland,Chech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, Singapore, Korea, New Zealand, and many more. In other words, virtually the entire DEVELOPED WORLD! Countries that should tax gas more are Canada, the US, Australia, Venezuela (currently subsidized) Saud Arabia, Iran and most of the Middle East.

"But, with fuel prices increasing"without bound" from a variety of pressures including, speculation, devaluation of the dollar, security as encouraged by our foreign policy. and general greed, nmow is not the time. Right now we are swirling towards a resession spear heqaded by energy costs."

Gasoline prices increasing by a few pennies is hardly "without bound." The current little blip in fuel prices has more to do with the weak dollar, speculation, and the usual OPEC manipulation than anything else. It appears to me that gasoline prices are swirling all the way from $3.00 to about $3.05 at the moment. When they hit $5.00, it will be good start.

Gas prices responding to seasonal pressures ? ....Not happening. The pressure that it inflicts upon ther rest on the economy is the most damaging. It may be 3.05 where you are....it's 3.50 here and climbing .05 a day on the average. We WILL see $4.00 a gallon this summer and we will still have the foolish govt. pumping billions into farm ethanol subsidies, the biggest joke of all, further increasing the price of basics. The increase in prices has as much to do with the continued devaluation of the dollar as anything.

THAT trend continues...."without bound" is the result. Buy all the economy cars you want...we will have little effect.