2 US Senators Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax Increase 619
An anonymous reader writes There are several proposals on the table to stave off the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund (which pays for transit, biking, and walking projects too) in two months. Just now, two senators teamed up to announce one that might actually have a chance. Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) have proposed increasing the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon over two years. The federal gas tax currently stands at 18.4 cents a gallon, where it has been set since 1993, when gas cost $1.16 a gallon.
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
a. Gas is much too cheap in the US.
b. We need a lot of infrastructure work.
Of course, I'm sure we could afford to pave all of our roads with gold, have diamond-studded bike lanes, and solid titanium sidewalks if we didn't spend half our budget on wars, but hey, I'm not holding my breath. There's not as much room for corruption in building roads in this country as there is building roads in some 3rd world country that we bombed into oblivion.
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Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because a good deal of the cost of gasoline has been externalized. Below are some examples:
Obviously, gasoline is not the sole driver of these, but it makes sense to better account for the true cost of using gasoline. Note that the gasoline tax has not changed in absolute terms since 1993, which means it's lost about 40% of its value to inflation.
This isn't to say that the 12 cent proposal is fair, or that sharply increasing gasoline prices is wise, but that a gradual increase to match its true cost is sensible.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone that moved to the US a couple of years ago but have previously lived in Europe, Japan and Australia - you guys do have very cheap fuel compared to virtually any other developed country you care to name.
Those other countries/regions are in decreasing order of cost ... while fuel in Australia is only maybe 1.5x the cost in the US, Europe is close to 2.5-3.0x.
The difference is of course down to the levels of taxation (the actual cost of oil/fuel itself is relatively similar everywhere on earth). But frankly, US roads are in terrible condition compared to the average road in those other regions I mentioned. I'd be glad to pay more for fuel if we could get some decent roads out of it. Most of them here in the Midwest are horribly bumpy and uneven ... patches upon patches upon patches on roads that really should have been completely ripped up and relayed years ago. I kind of understand now why cars don't seem to last as long in the US as in other countries - it's partly weather (particularly winter salt), but partly that they get slowly rattled to pieces death just by driving around!
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don't drive in the right lane where the trucks drive.
So your answer is, don't use half the road?
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because its more expensive in pretty much every other country
Genius. So because it's "more expensive in pretty much every other country." One should follow that example to screw "everyone else over." As a point it's $1.42/L($5.32/Gal) Canadian where I am right now, and businesses are already jacking up the prices on everything else. If you want to cause the economy to slow to a point even worse than it is in the US right now, go right ahead. Because one only needs to look at Ontario(once the primary GDP producer of Canada) to see what high energy prices, and poor government decision making do.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have a richer middle class than the US, as of this year?
just in case every single fact needs a link [www.cbc.ca]
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Our hosing bubble hasn't popped yet. Houses are at historic highs. Just wait a few years and things will go back to normal.
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Dunno about that one, but here's a snapshot of much of the market:
http://www.zillow.com/visuals/... [zillow.com]
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
" Because one only needs to look at Ontario(once the primary GDP producer of Canada) to see what high energy prices, and poor government decision making do."
Indeed, everyone should try that. Some of the best test scores on the planet, one of the highest percentages of post-secondary education, billions and billions in biomed research every year, and a long, healthy life span.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe if you took off the crap coloured glasses you might not thing everything stinks so much.
Well, there is the winter...
Re:Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in New Zealand, we apparently just posted one of the highest GDP increases in the world this year. 3.1% over the last year
Our petrol costs $NZ2.20/L. It's been over $2 for years now.
Tax is nearly 90c per litre.
So what goes GDP have to do with petrol taxes again?
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Translation:
Our gasoline costs $7.24/gallon. It's been over $6.50 for years now.
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$7.26 USD/gallon according to Google's latest exchange-rate thingy, but what is neglected is that New Zealand has at least four advantages that the US does not:
1) geographic size - infrastructure costs have to be orders of magnitude smaller.
2) smaller population, ergo less automobiles to pound on the aforementioned roads
3) the population is mostly concentrated in a couple of cities, and not of a huge relative geographical area. More folks can do mass transit there, and drive less often.
4) an immigration pol
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I've lived in NZ and California.
3) the population is mostly concentrated in a couple of cities, and not of a huge relative geographical area. More folks can do mass transit there, and drive less often.
The USA could really do with more mass transit. There's plenty of concentrated population. I've not spoken to a single American here who disagrees, so it must be down to politics. When you say concentrated... the Wellington region has less than 400k people. And yet you can get around reasonably easily via train and bus. I lived in Waikanae, an hours drive north of Wellington, and getting the train + bus took an 1hr 20 mins.
In the USA I live near Santa Rosa, and it takes 1hr 1
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So what goes GDP have to do with petrol taxes again?
Apparently, in New Zealand, not much, certainly if the wage slaves have years to get used to the government keeping it inflated.
I'm actually surprised to find there are vehicles running on petrol there at all. New Zealand is tiny by American standards. You can't go 1000 miles in one direction without falling into the ocean from the furthest points, and in some places it's only 14 miles from coast-to-coast.
Besides, I thought most people there just rode around on sheep.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that a gas tax is VERY regressive and hits the economy where it is the weakest:
Yes, gas taxes are regressive, but there are ways to fix that. The best way is to reduce other regressive taxes, that often cause even more harm to the economy, to offset the gax tax rise. For instance, we could reduce payroll taxes, which tend to be very regressive. High gas taxes mean less imported oil. High payroll taxes means fewer jobs. So that would be a very good tradeoff.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
Other countries also have much better public transportation. Which the US lacks unless you're in a major city.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Supply and demand. If you make travel by road artificially cheap (which it is - at least 1/3 of road budgets come from general taxation) then people will drive more rather than looking for public transit alternatives. The result is those alternatives are never created and those who would otherwise rely on them, for example the disabled who are unable to drive, lose out big time.
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Or too poor to drive.
And what's worst is we use their stories to argue for exacerbating the situation by trying to extend a "cheap oil" economy by all means available.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Supply and demand. If you make travel by road artificially cheap (which it is - at least 1/3 of road budgets come from general taxation) then people will drive more rather than looking for public transit alternatives. The result is those alternatives are never created and those who would otherwise rely on them, for example the disabled who are unable to drive, lose out big time.
What is more, cheap gasoline further externalizes the environmental costs of greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. Making gasoline more expensive may cause some short-term pain, but if it gives incentives to ICE owners/users to reduce emissions, either by driving less, using electric vehicles, public transportation, etc. ICE vehicle makers will also scramble to make more fuel efficient cars. We saw this effect during and after the 1973 oil embargo [wikipedia.org].
N.B. I live in a major US city where owning a car is a serious liability. YMMV. Pun intended.
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Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
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...and we have 5-6 cities where existing by public transit alone is reasonable (NYC, SF Bay, Boston, Philly, and Chicago). Strangely, while SF has under a million people, it's a much more walkable city than say...Houston (which, has a single above-ground rail line) population 2.61 million or LA (there's a movie about how LA lost its public transit that you've probably seen too [imdb.com]).
Simply living in an "urban area" does not guarentee decent public transit access.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
We need more regressive taxes in this country! Screw the poor people!
(Yes, consumption taxes on essential goods with demand tending towards inelasticity are regressive)
(my tinfoil hat tells me Corker likes this due to Toyota manufacturing in his state, and the increase in hybrid sales due to gas price hikes.)
Bad! (Score:2)
a. Gas isn't too cheap in the US. If anything, it looks like commodities investors alone drive the price independent of supply/demand.
b. The cost should go on registration. As we keep getting cars that are more and more efficient (and even run on electricity), we'll charging road users very unevenly. If this was an emissions tax that might be okay, but I think it isn't (?).
Re:Bad! (Score:4, Insightful)
Gas tax increases are a good pricing signal to increase fuel efficiency (better than CAFE standards or cash for clunkers).
There are two philosophies behind taxation.
One says that taxes are a necessary evil in order to pay for the things that government does. This is what the founding fathers felt. This is the reason for gas taxes in the first place: to pay for roads built by the government.
The other says that taxation is necessary for the reduction of evil, for whatever some group currently defines as evil. You believe that the use of fossil fuels is evil, therefore the taxes should be consistently increased to force a decline in use. This is not what the gas tax was instituted for. Some people think that simple "wealth" is evil, and thus there needs to be a tax to reduce that evil.
If we had started a decade ago today we'd have an extra 50c per gallon incentive to buy a more efficient vehicle and the insolvency of the highway trust fund would be another decade plus in the future.
Some people in both camps are always surprised to learn that taxation is not a zero sum game, despite repeated demonstrations of that effect over the years. Simply doubling a tax does not double revenues from that tax. For example, the states that thought they'd pay for their health care systems by increasing the taxes on cigarettes have learned that increased price per pack has resulted in a decrease in revenue as more people stop smoking. Increasing the gas taxes will cause less use and less tax revenue, so it will be harder to pay for the things the gas tax is intended to pay for. Part of the decrease will be from people who buy electric cars that pay NOTHING for road use. And some of the decrease will be from people who simply stop driving, which makes the idea of a tax credit for the poor people just another way to redistribute the wealth. (Yes, that is exactly what a credit to reimburse someone for paying a regressive tax when they didn't pay that tax to begin with, is.)
Those in the "eliminate evil" camp should realize that "Stop smoking" would be one result, since that was their goal in supporting that tax increase. And yet it is a surprise when revenues go down when fewer people pay such taxes.
The same thing is happening with the gasoline tax. The higher the price of gas, the less of it people buy, and more electric vehicles. The less gas people buy, the less revenue from gas taxes. It is a self-defeating game, and is dishonest to start with. Usurping a tax into a social engineering tax once it is established as a "pay for services" tax is dishonest. "We need a tax to pay for ..." "Ok, now you agreed to pay for X, we should increase the tax to convince people to behave the way I want them to..."
The correct response to "highway funding is down because of lower use of gasoline" is not "increase the tax", it is "find a way to get the other users of the roads etc. to pay for their use." A milage tax on electric vehicles, for example, and a mandatory registration fee for bicycles, perhaps. But to continually increase the costs for a dwindling fraction of the users of a service is not the right answer, nor the fair answer.
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Shocked you're modded insightful when you seem to have overlooked the obvious point that the idea is to reduce consumption,
Shocked that you missed my entire point that there are two philosophies behind taxation, only one of which is to "reduce consumption" of things that some people feel are evil to consume. I was referring explicitly to the unintended reduction in consumption that was a result of a desire to fund a government service through cigarette taxes. Said reduction in consumption left the service underfunded.
Also overall revenues will not necessarily go down,
"Zero sum game" does not mean that it is a certainty that the tax revenues will decrease with increasing taxe
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Too cheap?? LOL
What makes you think the added income will go towards infrastructure? The existing taxes are already supposed to pay for that but have been diverted to various pet projects..
Stupid much?
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
Say: "Social Security Trust Fund!" 100 times, then go count the IOU's that are in it... No dollars there, we spent it all.
Social Security... (Score:3)
Social Security: Another 24 percent of the budget, or $814 billion, paid for Social Security, which provided monthly retirement benefits averaging $1,294 to 37.9 million retired workers in December 2013. Social Security also provided benefits to 2.9 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.2 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 11 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents in December 2013.
I know very f
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Umm. Fuck you.
We have set aside funds for infrastructure. 18.4 cents of every single gallon of gas sold in the US! Where does that money actually go?
Well over 25% of gas tax funds go to side walks and bike trails and shit like that. How about we start with this.
States have gas taxes as well. In California I have to pay 71 cents/gal in gas taxes. Then because that is not enough sales tax on gas is calculated after the fuel tax so w
Cost rise and so must funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Gas is too cheap so the government must artificially raise the price.
No, infrastructure is too expensive for the funding we have in place. Gas is the best proxy we have for usage of that infrastructure so it's reasonable to tax that. More gas used means more infrastructure repairs needed and less gas used means less use of said infrastructure.
We have set aside funds for infrastructure. 18.4 cents of every single gallon of gas sold in the US! Where does that money actually go?
To maintain the infrastructure - duh. That's pretty much a matter of public record. It's a big country and we have a lot of crumbling roads. Furthermore 18.4 cents doesn't go as far as it did 20 years ago. In fact it is roughly equivalent to $0.11 cents in 1993 dollars once you adjust for inflation. Much of this infrastructure is paid for with federal dollars so it makes sense to tax it at the federal level.
Well over 25% of gas tax funds go to side walks and bike trails and shit like that.
Citation needed. That number smells like you just pulled it out from where the sun don't shine.
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With all due respect. Are you crazy? New taxes are never the solution. Ever. This is like helping someone who is addicted to cocaine, more cocaine! How about this, they truely balance the budget first, then we can argue about how we should spend the money. You want new roads, awesome, then we cut social security, medicare and medicate. I am all for it! There is nobody on this planet that is as inefficient as our government and thus giving them more money is akin to being insane.. Their only soluti
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good to know that you have a system as complicated as a country of hundreds of million people figured out with a single sentence. You should consider running for President. Sounds like Sarah Palin would be a perfect running mate for you!
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/a... [ssa.gov]
1993 Average income: 23,132.67
2013 Average income: 44,321.67
Roads and Bridges, like firefighters and law enforcement offers, are a legitimate function of government. Funding for the roads has been cut in half by inflation and the infrastructure is becoming dangerous. Especially bridges.
If the tax had been set at 18%- then it would have scaled with gasoline prices. But with the increasing share of hybrids, much higher mileage of gasoline cars (33mpg vs 28mpg), many more trucks used for shipping (70% more in 2007 than in 1997) (roughly 15 million today vs 4 million in 1993), and now purely electric cars the tax needs to be changed to reflect today's reality.
What we really need is to remove the gasoline tax and replace it with a mileage tax.
I read a lot of 1850's newspapers and it's funny because with the civil war approaching, the voters and legislators then seemed more rational than our voters and legislators today.
You *can't* *have* the roads for *free*.
It *costs* money to build and maintain the road system.
Grow up.
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1993: $48,000
2014: $52,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude...
You are using inflation adjusted figures for 1993.
Median income in 1993 was $30,210.. which adjusted for inflation is $48,884.
In 1993, the tax was 18.4 cents.. which adjusted for inflation would be 30 cents.
So 12 cents higher. Hmmmm. The math checks.
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It seems no one has explained to the slashdot viewers the nature of the US federalist government. You see, certain responsibilities are left to the federal government, such as military defense, coining money, and international trade agreements. Other responsibilities are left to state governments, such as firefighters, most law enforcement, and ROADS.
No the feds should not put any tax towards road infrastructure because they are not responsible for roads. They don't have the constitutional authority, and
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http://www.wyotax.org/gasoline... [wyotax.org]
Where do our Federal gasoline taxes go?
The federal tax goes directly to the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which was created in 1956 and provides funding to the states for highway and transit projects. Funding, however, is not based on how much tax is collected from a given state, but from a state's "need," which is calculated by several measures, including miles of road and number of licensed drivers. This means that some states are "winners" who receive more than they are tax
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not necessarily opposed to having some sort of tax based on usage (based on odometer readings I suppose, which would require all states to adopt annual inspections) but I think the tax on gasoline is a necessity as well. I guess I'm the opposite of the person you were responding to.
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Probably over 90% of bike riders also use motor vehicles so they're already paying the tax. The amount of wear a bicycle puts on a road is so miniscule it would probably be more expensive to collect the tax than it would cost to fix the damage they cause.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
This expense represents a 35% increase in our budget. We cannot legally cut services. So we have to issue a "tax" (dues increase to the HOA) to cover the cost. The benefit to the community is that they will be able to sell their homes again--we've already seen a 20% loss in value.
So yes, taxes are sometimes necessary. In my case it's forced from the outside. In the government's case, it could be due to waste and inefficiency but I'm willing to bet that is a very small percentage (and a study I've read of welfare waste backs this up). It could also be due to increasing population, increased infrastructure regulatory requirements, dwindling resources, etc, etc, etc.
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Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
While we're on analogies - what you're saying is you can live on a wage from 20-years ago today and ignore the inflation that has happened in that period?
Remember that this is a fixed rate set 21-years ago, while the costs associated maintaining infrastructures have gone up. Further, cars have also became substantially more fuel efficient reducing the per km value of the tax as well without corresponding reduction of wear or demand on the infrastructure.
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With all due respect. Are you crazy? New taxes are never the solution. Ever. This is like helping someone who is addicted to cocaine, more cocaine! How about this, they truely balance the budget first, then we can argue about how we should spend the money. You want new roads, awesome, then we cut social security, medicare and medicate.
Its a bit more complicated than that in this specific case. Gas taxes go into the Highway Trust which is used to fund highway construction and repair projects and other related transportation projects. 80% isn't actually spent directly by the Federal government, its block granted to states for state infrastructure projects related to highways and transit. The taxes themselves aren't indexed to inflation and haven't been adjusted since 1993, so while they remain relatively static the costs of performing t
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As someone who spends a large portion of their monthly budget on gas, I am very apposed to this. I also am opposed to the diverting of the transportation fund for other things that has been quite common place (or at least in my state).
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Let's say I'm the lawnmower. Your lawn needs mowing so you pay me to do it. However, I don't mow your lawn. Instead I smear shit all over your windows.
Your lawn still needs mowing. Will you give me even more money?
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
I think the tax needs to be a percentage tax.
I agree that our infrastructure is suffering due to lack of funding.
Adjusted for inflation, this tax has lost almost 75% of the purchasing power it had 20 years ago.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
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Yup- I saw wages went from 23 to 43 after I posted this. Which is in line with the cpi calculator.
But, need to be careful of the CPI calculator because they've been messing with it for a while to address Cola increases (esp social security).
For example, the price of gasoline has roughly tripled.
The average cost of a new car in 1993 was about $12500. This price will vary depending the make and model of the car. A luxury car cost close to $20000
The average price of a new car in 2013 was $31252. Luxury cars
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Good!
a. Gas is much too cheap in the US.
b. We need a lot of infrastructure work.
True on all points, but electrics should contribute as much as gasoline powered cars from Honda to Ferrari.
At this stage the tax should be on the odometer; read and applied when you renew your insurance.
And if its going to scale to anything it should be correlated to vehicle weight.
A Ferrari may drink 4x as much gas as a Honda Civic, but it causes the same wear on the infrastructure. The 4,600 lb Tesla does more wear and tear th
Perfect is the enemy of good (Score:3)
And if its going to scale to anything it should be correlated to vehicle weight.
And what good is that if the vehicle rarely gets driven? Gas is a reasonable proxy on average for vehicle weight. Bigger cars generally consume more fuel. Yes there are some gas guzzlers that consume more than their share but there also are some fuel sippers that consume less. There are environmental benefits to taxing those who needlessly consume more of a resource than necessary.
A Ferrari may drink 4x as much gas as a Honda Civic, but it causes the same wear on the infrastructure.
You're looking for a perfect proxy for road usage. Stop. There isn't any perfect measure you could use that is practically
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I thought about mentioning a tire tax, but i think odometer / mileage based taxes are better.
The problem with tire taxes are that, as you observed, they'd DRAMATICALLY increase the price of tires.
Tires are crucial safety equipment, and putting a consumption tax on them will just motivate all kinds of STUPID.
From black market tire changes in Mexico or Canada, and people avoiding replacing tires until they were well past unsafe, people running (and manufacturers pushing) harder tires with poorer braking chara
Re:Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
Good!
a. Gas is much too cheap in the US.
b. We need a lot of infrastructure work.
Of course, I'm sure we could afford to pave all of our roads with gold, have diamond-studded bike lanes, and solid titanium sidewalks if we didn't spend half our budget on wars, but hey, I'm not holding my breath. There's not as much room for corruption in building roads in this country as there is building roads in some 3rd world country that we bombed into oblivion.
Personally, I would love detailed breakdown of where the current gas taxes goes. I'm willing to bet that a good portion of it goes to other programs, pet projects, and expenditures that have nothing to do with highway, bridges, transit, bike, or walking path infrastructure. In other words, I'm pretty sure that there is enough money coming in from gas taxes today. I'm also willing to bet that the Highway Trust Fund would not see the full amount of any tax hike....
This is just another way to get people to pay more taxes.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
And you'd be wrong.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/motor... [dot.gov]
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey man, maybe this tax is a good idea, but the whole "Gas is much too cheap in the US," thing is a pretty dumb thing to say. There is no such thing as "too cheap." By all means, end the gas subsidies and externalities (e.g, middle east wars, not having to pay to plant forests to soak up CO2 pollution, etc) and add any taxes that are appropriate (e.g. fuel usage and road wear maybe aren't an exact match but they're pretty close; so I'd say gax taxes to pay for highways are a pretty decent idea), but even 10 cents per gallon wouldn't be "too cheap" because nothing can ever possibly be too cheap.
That said, gas sure is cheap. I can buy gas cheaper than I can buy Coca Cola and it's sure worth a lot more.
What? (Score:4, Informative)
The US Government has spent over a trillion dollars funding a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 6 billion dollars funding a revolt in the Ukraine, at least 9 million dollars funding rebels in Syria (I have not looked at any numbers past what Obama did last September), Billions in beefing up US Local police forces, Billions more on DHS, FEMA, and the TSA, Billions more funding Egypt's various revolutions, and untold amounts in "black budgets" all over Africa. Even the GOA who is supposed to ensure accountability for spent tax dollars, spends millions on a lavish party for 33 people in Las Vegas.
And you think average people who's salaries and average wealth has gone down by nearly 30% in the last decade alone should pay even more money because they could not spent anything on Roads and Infrastructure whilst they pissed away your money everywhere else?
Bipartisanship (Score:2)
When it comes to raising money, they can both get on the same train.....
Anyhow, an 18 cent change all at once is never gonna happen. They'll have enough rending of garments and gnashing of teeth if they try to raise it nickel.
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er, 12 cents. Same difference....
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You are correct about 18 cents all at once never happening.
But the summary says it's 12 cents over 2 years.
Index it to inflation (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, you don't index it to inflation, you make it a percentage of the pre-tax cost, i.e. make it a sales tax.. So you set the gas tax to something like 6 cents on the dollar at the retail point of sale...
Yes, I know this changes the whole way we collect these taxes, but this way it's automatically adjusted from here on out and we can stop this political hand wringing exercise.
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Re:Index it to inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
We have inflation becasue the Federal Government spends more than it takes in.
I stopped taking you seriously right there.
Re:Index it to inflation (Score:4, Interesting)
how about a bike and feet tax instead, they should pay their side of things...
Places for people to cycle and walk are so incredibly cheap compared to roads (and railways) that is really isn't worth bothering with a special tax to fund them.
I can't find the Dutch document I read recently, which said the highest quality cycle+pedestrian paths at the side of a new road added less than 10% to the cost.
Yes, let's tax the poor (Score:5, Insightful)
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It will affect you. Unless you don't buy anything from stores or restaurants.
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Or have anything delivered to you. Or use the postal service. Or pay taxes...
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So you say. But you have to realize that's also a hike in the transportation costs of anything shipped by truck in the USA (damn near everything). Gas tax hikes essentially cause a negative supply shock [wikipedia.org]. This is a particularly evil kind of economic event where costs rise and and employment drops. This is why we haven't raised this particular tax in two decades.
If it really needs to rise (most likely it does), if it were me I'd wait until the next time gas prices drop for some reason, and raise it then to a
Fuck. That. (Score:5, Interesting)
Defund the NSA, we'll have all the money we need for roads and infrastructure. And then some.
Wrong area to cut. (Score:3)
Why would you do that? There're the primary source of targeting data for the 700 Billion we spend every year on the military. It would be like buying a brand new GPS and then not loading it with any maps to save money.
Hybrid/Electric? (Score:2)
So did shares in Tesla go up on this news? Expected increases in Prius sales?
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uh huh, when electric cars become common they'll be taxed out the wazoo for highway / transportation too
Let's be fair (Score:4, Insightful)
The government only pulled in $1,934,919,000,000 this year so there's obviously not enough to go around.
or else how about (Score:2)
... dropping the transit, walking, and such goo out of the federal outlays, and leave it to relevant localities.
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And another pedestrian died just last month.
The EU public transportation with there higher tax (Score:2)
The EU has more public transportation with there higher taxes on gas.
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The US population is much more spread out. Our land area is over twice the size of the entire EU but we have only about 63% as much people. What works there doesn't necessarily work here.
Should be compared to CPI (Score:4, Informative)
Since the gas tax is ostensibly for the construction and maintenance of roads and highways, it should be compared to that. The cost of maintenance and construction scale mostly according to CPI, not the price of gas. I can't think of any reason why you'd compare the tax to the price of gas unless you're deliberately trying to mislead people into thinking it needs to go up more (political arguments about energy taxes aside).
Putting $1.16 into an inflation calculator [bls.gov] yields $1.90 in 2014 dollars, or a 64% increase. 64% of 18.4 cents is 11.7 cents. So a 12 cent increase is exactly what's needed for the tax to keep pace with inflation.
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There is one reason to compare it to the cost of gasoline, which is predicated on an inverse relationship between the cost of fuel and the amount people are willing to spend on it. While there are many quibbles and outright logical flaws in the reasoning behind the gas tax, this one seems relatively sound:
1) Gas tax is a certain percentage of cost of fuel, collected as fuel is purchased. Fuel use approximately correlates with wear and tear on roads.
2) Price of gas increases dra
*sigh* (Score:3)
Why is it the only time Ds and Rs can agree on something is when they're reaching their grubby little hands into my wallet?
Typical Government reasoning.... (Score:3, Informative)
Instead of taking a hard look at where the money in the Highway Trust Fund is going, their solution is to simply bring in more money. The HTF was originally set up to fund the building of the Interstate Highway system. Period. That was it's sole purpose. Those funds were transferred to various States to build and expand the IH system as needed.
Fast forward to today and the HTF resources are being funneled into Transit systems, ferry boats, bike paths, and nature trails. All worthy causes but the money should not come out of the HTF. That's why it is underfunded.
This is the same trick that politicians play time and again. It happens with Education, Social Security and other items.
Does anyone notice that small of change? (Score:3)
Re:still cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
Does your government also spend untold billions on illegal surveillance of the population, secret "black" prisons abroad, and wars against the personal freedoms of the citizens?
If so, then yea, it's terrible that our fuel tax is so much lower than yours. If not, well, then it's really a completely different situation.
Re: still cheap (Score:3)
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The problem is where exactly do you draw that line? If I drive my car across the state border to buy cheaper booze, then everything from my driveway to the store parking lot and back is "directly involved" in interstate commerce.
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You're on the right track but your example is not interstate commerce. The money was paid and the goods provided in just one state.
Re:Take it out of the subsidies (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that would take the cost directly out of our monied overlords' pockets. Instead, this way the peasants cover almost the whole bill and the ultra-rich don't even notice the difference.
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Since we subsidize the energy sector with tax payer dollars already to the tune of $2.4B per year, why don't we simply reduce the subsidy to pay for new infrastructure?
Too easy?
Subsides? Don't you mean TAX CREDITS?
You do know that we collect BILLIONS from energy companies in taxes right? Exxon Mobil paid 24 BILLION in income taxes in 2013 on 57 Billion in profit according to their latest 10-K. I don't understand how that's being subsidized... Seems like they are paying lots of taxes to me, nearly 50%. And I just picked Exxon out of the air, knowing it was a US company. I'm sure the others paid similar amounts. On the other hand GE paid, according to their 10-K only 4.2% in i
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As much as it would suck because it would mean paying more all along, it would make more sense. There's a lot of things in which percentages would make more sense, but the government opts for absolute values - various taxes, minimum wage, etc
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The tax-per-gallon is over 2x as much as the oil companies themselves get from it in profit (currently $0.184 for the feds vs. ~$0.08 for the so-called evil oil companies).
So yeah, what the hell - let's nearly double the gas taxes *and* jack up prices for everything else at the same time - after all, these chumps in congress don't have to pay it (their transportation is almost fully provided either gratis or reimbursed, for as long as they're senators...)
Fuckheads. I'd rather see a direct income tax hike -
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Fuckheads. I'd rather see a direct income tax hike - at least that way it's an honest attempt, and it doesn't jack up the price of everything else.
Besides, the gas tax is regressive, because it hits the poor hardest. At least the income tax is designed to be progressive (even though most of the elites at the top pay very little or none at all, thanks to tax code favoritism).
Re: Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
America, where poor people drive cars.
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Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
A few quick calculations, for comparison:
In UK, 1 litre of petrol (gasoline) costs about 1.2 GBP. 1 US gallon = 3.7 litres, so that works out as 7.57 USD per gallon. The OP doesn't actually say what you guys pay, but I get the impression that it is less by a wide margin. The US is also, I believe, the largest economy on the planet, and you spend more energy, per capita, than any other nation in the world. Perhaps you should tighten up a bit on the way you waste energy - I assume it must wasted, because it doesn't look like all that extra energy results in higher, actual production.
I'm sorry I haven't got loads of sympathy, but it does look like a luxury problem to me. Find a way to change the situation - fix the inequalities in your society, so the poorest don't have to struggle in hopeless poverty in order to feed the indulgencies of the rich.
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Except the bus actually lowers the road damage. Because those 50 people would otherwise drive 50 cars.
It's effectively the government subsidising buses to reduce the wear on the roads and decrease the amount of roading required.
aka Public Transport