Correct. It is not the case that I implied 50% of US imported oil comes from Middle East. I did state 50% of US oil is imported. Perhaps that is what you read and misunderstood. The reason the US planned for (10 years) and has been engaged in (last 20 years to date) war for oil in the Middle is that Middle East controls the world oil market. Oil is a fungible resource, doesn't really matter where it comes from. There is only one world export market for oil and it is controlled by Middle East with about 40% of total EXPORT market oil. This means what happens in Middle East determines what happens to oil available to be imported to countries like US that are dependent on oil imports. The Pentagon, having identified Middle East oil disruption as the No. 1 national security threat for US and having spent $14T arming and fighting wars to secure that oil supply, can probably better explain to you why Middle East production controls the world's oil market. Middle East blows up, Canadian or Nigerian or Venezuelan oil goes up in price and, as always, sold to highest bidder which would not be the US, unless China lends us the money.
The solution to the gas tax revenue is obvious: Tax the tires. All cars use tires regardless of fuel or drive. We all want to pay enough to maintain the roads we use.
Absolutely! Same goes for paying for libraries, schools, etc. via property taxes. Many of the heaviest users of these facilities aren't property owners, and therefore pay no taxes toward said facilities.
We need to discourage oil use so we tax tires? KISS might apply. Just tax the gasoline usage we are trying to reduce. It has worked well in Europe. Per Capita Gasoline Consumption (liters) German 353 l per person $2.21 per liter UK 396 l per person $2.18 per liter US 1,618 l per person $1.06 per liter.
You missed my point: the problem being discussed was the decline in revenue from the gas tax because of HVs and EVs. The solution to maintaining the revenue stream (so we can maintain our roads) is to tax tires. THAT revenue won't go down due to more efficient engines.
1. There is no significant decline on gas tax revenues from hybrids on electrics. Not enough of them to have any impact. 2. There is a significant decline in gas tax revenue since US is in economic depression. 3. Solution is to increase tax and to make it a percentage of price of gasoline. We don't want to encourage or force people to drive on unsafe tires by taxing tires. Directly tax the commodity or behavior one is seeking to eliminate.
This will encourage too many drivers to delay tire replacement beyond what they already do. The increased rate of bald tires, with their decreased wet traction, will be a serious road safety issue.
Great. Just what we need. More encouragement to do what the EU does….and look! Numbers too!!! Are those liters per year? By the way....your math is a little off. Gas here is only about $0.94 a liter. I’d ask for a source, but it doesn’t matter. Made-up by you versus made-up by somebody that owns a web site. You're arguing about a problem that doesn't exist. Currently....the tax on gas is sufficient to maintain the FWTF. We might get a little more rubber on the road out of this program (pun almost unintended) if they used this fund exclusively for....roads, but this is yet another case study for why you really don't want government handling your money, now isn't it? OK. So EV use is a real (instead of one of the many contrived) tax break for rich folks. Big deal. How many EVs are on the road as a percentage of total vehicles in use??? 0.0000001 percent??? I know certain folks can't help but to salivate at the idea that we might have another reason to thwack people on their sterns with yet more taxes, but why don't we wait a few years (like 20-30) for EV use to reach a number that you can express as a measureable percentage of actual vehicles that are on the roads. THEN you can tax the crap out of them......or maybe just cut back on the tax subsidies that you're dolling out to this same group of folks. Part of the real reason for the current flat gasoline demand is the economy. Yeah...I know. We're in the "Summer of Recovery".....or was that last year? $3.50 a gallon gas isn't raising demand much, but it's also not helping the economy either since higher energy costs = higher everything else costs. These costs disproportionally effect poorer folks---to borrow a turn of phrase from some of my bed-wetting liberal friends…only in this case, the effect is real. Despite previous claims....not all of the working poor live in the inner cities. In fact, I hate to break it to you, but most don't. Working poor in this country are mostly driving poor. Guess what???? They mostly do not drive Priuses! Why??? Becuase they're poor! They mostly have to drive gas guzzlers, until the gentrified snobs get their quadrennial itch to trade their gas sippers in on newer gas sippers. The working poor pay a higher percentage of their salaries on the very commodities that would be the most negatively affected by the inflationary impact of a sudden spike in energy prices. So....tell me again how "compassionate" it is to tax the crap out of gas. I'm sure that it will make a lot more sense to me than the "I wanna run my economy like they do in the EU" crap I've been reading.
This is a good point that I had not thought of: Taxing gas encourages people to use less of it, which is a desirable result. Taxing tires would encourage people to use their tires longer, resulting in driving on unsafe tires, which is not a desirable result. Of course, it depends on the amount of the tax. If it's $1 on a $75 tire, it will have no effect. If it's 50% of the tire price, it will. I do notice people talking at cross purposes here, though: Some want a gas tax in order to foster national energy independence. Some think a gas tax should just be to fund roads and see a tire tax as a better way to do that as non-gas cars come onto the roads. I want to tax cars to pay for all the costs that cars impose on society and I'm not sure any one single tax can do that. We might need an "all of the above" approach.
Well then its simple, we take over the oil companies and nationalize them, because they are taking American oil and shipping it out and raising the price by Wall Street speculators and back door deals. Oh, and we'll use the military to do it, since they are already being used by the oil corporations to protect their assets, now they can protect the assets of Americans for a change.
No I didn't misunderstand. Tapatalk sucks. I meant to say that you seem to imply that 50% of our imported oil comes from the middle east, which is not the case.
So when you tax the hell out of the middle class so they can't afford to drive, or afford the goods that are shipped with fossil fuels what will you do then? Not everybody can afford a fancy tesla to drive around. Perhaps when you increase the gas tax and demand falls off we can add a 1000% subsidy on electricity for ev's to help the middle class afford your expensive gas.
Your argument is empty. Or rather, your link is broken: The engineering overview I received decades ago stated that road damage varied with the 4th power of loading. If that is correct, a truck with 4 load bearing axles carrying 15,000 pounds each causes 20,000 times as much damage as a car with a pair of 1,500 pound axles. But on the road, cars outnumber heavy trucks by nowhere near 20,000 to 1, more like 20 to 1. Put another way, your 3000 pound car causes 0.00005 of the damage of the heavy truck. The 2300 pound car, 0.000017 of the damage. I call out both of those as negligible when about every tenth vehicle is a commercial truck, and less than half of them are deadheading. My household has cars at both 3000 and 2300 pounds, and they both already pay annual weight fees: $10 each, the lowest category available.
My favorite talking point on tax at the pump: Keep overall taxes the same, but.... ...lower the income tax increase the gasoline tax Now the public is serious about saving fuel and sustainability.
Exactly, There is a finite amount of money available. If you want to increase revenue from one area, you need to reduce it from another.
But after paying 10$ a gallon and eliminating 50% of the US trade deficit and 50% of the the Military spending debt(black hole), we would still have no health care, which if it were to have been looked at before hand and incorporated, might help reduce the 42cents of every US health care dollar spent on billing and processing vs any country with national health care spending 2cents per dollar. just sayin I'd welcome a gas tax that helped me pay my 10,000$ deductible 1,200$ per month health bill:cheer2:
