Gasoline tax

Louis Black did a bit where he said Democrats are the party of no ideas, Republicans are the party of bad ideas. They just might have switched places in 2012.

Sure it was, you just are looking through the lens of all we need is more. MMS had bad regulation, not too little. When coming into power this was known, and the Obama admin promised to clean it up, but MMS is still broken.

The US has a law paying for offshore drilling. Why? Its profitable, Remove it.

Why was MMS both collecting revenues, setting rates, approving short cuts, and enforcing safety. This presents a number of conflicts of interest. Split up responsibility for revenue to a different department, one conflict gone. Make it illegal for MMS employees to get gifts from oil companies period, instead of hundreds of pages describing what types of gifts they can... be bribed with.

Why is MMS regulating polution for driling, it could be with EPA? MMS doesn't care about polution, change the regulation, stream line drilling with other things EPA regulates. The epa would run much smoother if it just handled pollution, instead of trying to decide which laws will help constituents.

Make MMS have oil companies follow the law, instead of approving ways to go arround it. If you don't let people cheat you don't need as many pages of regulations to describe legal ways to cheat.

On the financial crisis, the government created fannie and freddie. It then changed laws to make it legal for investment banks to do commercial banking and create and trade mortgage derivatives. It allowed mergers for banks and insurance companies to get too big to fail. The government didn't just let the financial crisis happen, they pushed laws that encouraged it to happen. You need to ask yourself why are members of congress the only people allowed by law to do insider trading?

Its not too little regulations, its corrupting regulation, put in place by the government.

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That is just one of the problems. It needs to be tackled.

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Yes solyndra was a green jobs program, not a green energy program. DOE should support technology, not jobs. Making it a venture capitalist for jobs is the corrupting influence. Removing subsidies, and charging costs would be much less corrupting than trying to give solar subsidies and coal subsidies, etc.

 

We don't need more oil refining, we need to use 50% less oil (easily done using European examples of energy efficiency). US already has an overcapacity of oil refining. It can be reduced as US cuts oil use.

Subsidize the most profitable companies in the US and the world? You can't be serious. We already provide $18B/yr in subsidies to oil companies which is nuts. If anything we should be taxing oil companies to recover the $500B given to oil companies over last 30 years.

The point of oil taxes is to:

1. Discourage use of oil since oil use and resulting imports represent the No. 1 threat to US national security.

2. Pay for the $14T in debt and damages (Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of Alaska, water pollution, climate damage) and military costs of oil.

3. Finance sustainable energy alternatives, mass transit etc. to replace oil use.

Really gets back to Clinton plan for a carbon tax, US fossil fuel use overall needs to be reduced by 50%. Had GOP not blocked the carbon tax in 1994, US would be in much better shape. The trillion of dollars and thousands of lives lost in the oil wars might have been saved.

 

Actually government worked well up to 1980, Debt/GDP was going down under Dems and GOP, Truman's containment policy vs Soviet Union was coming to fruition, the Vietnam War was over and the inflation and economic costs were being absorbed.

After 1980 it all went bad, deficits and debt exploded, income inequality went crazy, middle class was gutted, oil wars began, Wall St went out of control, US oil use went up instead of down, US energy efficiency fell behind other developed nations, US auto industry imploded as fuel efficiency standards were delayed, Debt/GDP went back to WWII levels. Wonder what happened in 1980?

But here we are so lets start fixing the mess.

Specific to the oil problem, by going with the successful high oil/gasoline taxes that have worked so well in Europe, US could finance the upgrade to get our economy as energy efficient as Europe, finance sustainable energy industry and jobs. The smart government industrial policy of Germany, Korea and China is why all three countries lead in sustainable energy industry and run trade surpluses.

 

How would you know? You have no idea what is going on at a refinery and you prove it any time you post. Most of us don't want punishing taxes like they have in Europe. It certainly does not seem to be doing them a great deal of good. The refineries on the east coast are closing because they can not handle the lower grades of oil, and must compete with the european refineries that also do not provide enough capacity. Under capacity causes price spikes. Your rediculous ideas about europe really hurt your case. You should at least try to stay quiet long enough to listen to people telling you what is going on. PC isn't a great source of information.

Refining capacity is a public good, which the small number of oil companies will not build in sufficient quantity because its not profitable. In fact shortages of refining capacity are more profitable to them. Who said anything about giving them more money. 5 companies control more than 50% of refining capacity, which along with capacity constraints makes them tough to regulate environmentally. If you tax the oil coming into the refineries it can pay for subsidies to have enough refining capacity. This is not expensive as the refiners can use excess capacity for export. You obviously did not read or understand that.

Who gave oil companies $500B in 30 years? You really need to try for some accuracy in your figures. You hurt discussion with bad numbers.

We both think petroleum taxes should go up.

 

If you think that the government hasn't given the oil companies at LEAST $500 Billion in 30 years, prove they haven't.

 

No that's not fair. Can't prove a negative. But with the current fight in Congress to cut the oil companies $18B a year subsidy, won by the GOP and the oil companies, we have documentation of the subsidy. 30 years of the subsidy adds up to a bit over $500B.

5% of the US national debt is due to paying the most profitable, ruthless corporations in the world a subsidy.

 

We don't want punishing taxes,, when in fact increasingly we don't want any taxes, and yet we continue to use services, we just expect others to pay for them!

We punishingly taxes cigarettes and most of us have stopped using them, and now in some small measure the taxes pay the added health care costs associated with smoking. A carbon tax might begin to pay the environmental cost of carbon, even if some chose to be blind to the fact that there actually is an unpaid cost!

We want cheap stuff, and cheap energy, regardless of the consequences socially, economically or environmentally. There is litte other rational argument to be made. One can only argue the nuance.

Icarus

 

I'm not quite sure what proof you would take. This is a made up number, so let me know how those making it up come up with it. Then we can discuss what is wrong.

Remember that oil companies pay taxes, and during the '80s were paying windfall profits taxes, which didn't amount to much because they shifted to make profits where they were not taxed, foreign operations. If you include the opec oil companies, sure the government has donated loads to opec. If you mean Exxon Mobil, Chaveron, etc, tell me how you come up with your numbers.

 

I'm not quite sure I understand. I don't get much utility from large foreign military bases, give aways to plant corn then tarrifs to make hfcs and ethanol more profitable, or paying bp to drill in the gulf. You may enjoy such things but most of us don't.

A slowly rising oil tax would have utility, but when some call for european levels of taxation because we want unemployment like they have in some european countries that is what I call punishing.

The NY cigarette taxes seem to only cause people to smuggle them in. High taxes on cigarrettes doesn't seem like a bad idea. High taxes to stop us from running say our ambulances or tractors seems stupid. It depends on the level. I prefer an oil tax that would replace other taxes and slowly come into play to allow for behavioral changes. Others seem to just want to punish SUV drivers. If the oil tax is less than the damages that isn't high enough, but if it is high and the money is pissed away on some new government scheme that is also wrong.

You need to separate who the we are. Some of us plant trees and buy organic, and our whole foods stock more than pays for it. Others talk about it and shovel money to places like solyndra or subsidies to drill in the gulf or lower taxes on venture capital firms they work for.

There are real differences not nuance. If you are mike kelly and want to subsidize oil, but not electric cars - you are a hypocrit. If you want to subsidize Americans building solar plants with a $4/gallon gas tax because otherwise the chinese will take your job, your probably something equally as bad.

 

Like I said, it is largely nuance,,, Smokes were $.35 a pack when I started, now they earn close to $10 some places,, and yes there is some smuggling, but the price has reduced consumption.

I don't mind "punishing" SUv drivers. As for taxing fuel for ambulances and tractors is a straw man argument. Farmers use road tax free diesel, and most municipal fire and rescue either have tax free or get rebated. Do truckers take a hit,, of course, but the idea is to encourage more efficient use of energy net/net, and any reasonable person knows that we are addicted to just in time shipping, even though the railway is much more efficient in terms of energy use. WHy should any hard good travel coast to coast on a truck? Perishables maybe.

I'm with you on ethanol, but not on subsidizing renewables,, unless you cut the subsidies to ALL FUEL! Like I said,, mostly nuance,, devil in the details.

Icarus

 

My bad. The $18B is the total subsidy for all fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas. Oil's portion is "only" $6B per year so Exxon, BP et al only have to pay back $300B ($150B plus interest). Obama tried to cut $2B of the $6B oil company subsidy but oil company and GOP won the fight.

Imagine if US had put that $500B to getting US energy efficiency to world standards and developing new energy industry like Germany, Korea and China did. But we digress.

What to do NOW.

1. Tax oil to get US gasoline prices to European levels in 10 years.

2. Use the money ($6T over 10 years) to build mass transit and to subsidize sustainable energy and anything the reduces oil consumption like hybrid and EV cars.

And remember oil companies don't pay taxes but make huge profits, destroy the environment, bribe politicians to keep US oil use high, wage oil wars and engage in price manipulation. Oil companies have been bad actors since Rockefeller discovered dynamite, Pinkerton thugs and monopoly practices.

 

Its been said before. There are plenty of european countries that do or have operated by your rationale. And look how great they are doing now.

 

You want to know what 6 trillion dollars will do over ten years in the hands of the governmemt? Absolutely nothing. It will do nothing but put another government leach to suck the middle class wallet away, while the money gets squandered by corruption and earmarks. The government has plenty of pinkerton thugs and monopoly practices under its belt too. If you want to find a real solution to your problem, keep government out of the equation.

 

You think he is on your side? Think again:
Obama biggest recipient of BP cash - Erika Lovley - POLITICO.com

Obama was top recipient of BP-related dollars in 2008 - CNN

 

Imagine if we had spent the $8 trillion on the Middle East on energy independence, we would be the Middle East of energy.

 

A vast desert wasteland full of oil?

 

Depends on government. Reagan/Bushes, it went to Halliburton and Dick Cheney and useless wars for oil in Middle East. That cost us $14T in debt. We could pay some of that off.

Also rehire 500,000 laid off teachers, 100,000 laid off police offices, double NASA spending, rebuild bridges and highways that got neglected so Halliburton could build Camp Cupcake in Iraq, new schools, park system is hurting, Gulf of Mexico cleanup hasn't even started, do a five year plan like China's to dominate solar energy field, build the new internet...there's a lot on the government's plate that was left undone so we could fight former Reagan/Bush buddies Saddam and Bin Laden for control of Middle East oil fields.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that the nation faces a $2.2 trillion infrastructure backlog. One of every eight bridges is "structurally deficient," and 85 percent of public transit systems are struggling to carry the growing number of riders. As ASCE President Blaine D. Leonard puts it, "We are still driving on Eisenhower's roads and sending our kids to Roosevelt's schools."

 

Still harping on that 14 trillion dollar fantasy number i see.

You want a 5 year plan "like China's" to dominate the solar energy field? Grow a billion disposable factory workers.

 

Never did. Obama's a Reagan Democrat.

Guess that's why he only tried to take $2B of the $6B a year oil company subsidy. But then GOP wanted big oil to keep all the taxpayer's money.

That's the difference, Reagan GOP'er Obama takes $2B from oil companies and gives it back to tax payer. Tea Party GOP gives all of the $6B to the oil company.

 

When you start citing sources, other than linking the treasury's main homepage, I might start to take notice to anything you say. Until then my computer smells an awful lot like bull excrement.