Comments on: Obama is right: Higher gasoline taxes to boost efficiency would be “a mistake”

By: BOB

BOB — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:53:44 +0000

The only reason there is low supply of gasoline in this country is, the BIG FAT OIL COMPANIES, are refining less oil on purpose to keep prices artificially high. It has nothing to do with the price of oil, and operational cost are the same no matter what. Yes they always increase prices before a holiday, but gasoline has increased $.70 per gallon in one month. No one is driving much any more even during the holidays. traffic is down 50% where i live. I believe the BIG FAT OIL COMPAnIES, not the sellers of oil, but the refiners of oil into gas are the real problem, plus idiot gas-stock speculators trying to speculate $3.00-$4.00,and even $5.00 per gal gas prices by end of summer. They, and the ones who agree or support high gas prices are destroying the entire USA economy, because our entire
USA life style is based on gasoline prices. Transportation of ourselves, food,and all goods, and places in our country that depend on people being able to travel, by car bus train,,etc, depend on the price of a gallon of gas. The thing that bothers me the most is that our represensitives,and our “change is coming” president is saying or doing NOTHING!!, about the price of a gallon of gas.DON’T TELL THE ME THEY CAN’T BECAUSE THE CAN!! I HOPE by winter people in this country will have cut back so far on travel,that gas prices will have to fall, and this time the BIG FAT OIL COMPANIES WILL THE BE THE ONES wanting A BAIL-OUT!! Give me the $.18 sales tax, but stop these extremes in gas prices, or our econmy will go down the drain for good.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:02:08 +0000

Another example of Obama’s unwillingness to do anything that’s unpopular. The wrong question was asked. The right question is, “why don’t we raise gasoline taxes and lower income taxes?”

By: kiwichick

kiwichick — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:37:06 +0000

Unless the price of petrol is underpinned by a much higher tax Detroit will die as it falls further behind Asian countries

By: kiwichick

kiwichick — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:32:19 +0000

Why not increase the petrol tax incrementally?

I understand the tax is 18 cents/ gallon? The tax in Australia is approx. 55 cents/litre ie approx. $2/gallon but we still drive long distances ( eg 1.5 hours @ average 90 kms/hour to go the nearest city)

How about increasing the tax to 30 cents/gallon to start with and then increasing by 10 cents every 3 months, with the goal of $2/gallon while at the same time
a) making public transport say 10% tax deductible and
b) making sports equipment(jogging shoes, clothes. bikes,gym fees and sports clubs fees ) 50 % tax deductible

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:55:50 +0000

The very first point of your analysis is ridiculous. You equate the average fuel economy of Europe in 2002 with America’s 2020 ‘goal,’ which is only a goal, not a reality.
In 2002 there were not hybrids like there are today, there was no oil crisis like there is today, fuel-efficiency was simply not nearly as big a deal as it is now and will be in the coming years. To dismiss Europe’s 2002 average as “just a tad more” than America’s will supposedly be in 2020 just makes no sense. Europe achieved this solely through the gas tax. If you want to raise American fuel-efficiency, the gas tax is the way to do it quickly, rather than a far-off goal for 2020.

[JR: You should not call other people's analysis ridiculous, when yours is amount at least as detailed. In fact, Europe has had high gas taxes for a quarter century, so their strategy isn't faster. More to the point, Europe did not achieve this solely through the gas tax, unless you are including a significant relative fuel subsidy for diesel (along with a much weaker set of air pollution standards than the U.S.). It was the transition to diesel as much as anything else that boosted Europe's fuel efficiency.

It is ridiculous to say a gas tax would be any faster. But then again, it is ridiculous to say that America would embrace gas taxes anywhere near as high as Europe has now. And Europe is still turning to fuel economy standards to lower greenhouse gas emissions.]

By: Ronald

Ronald — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:59:55 +0000

Tastes great, less filling, tastes great, less filling. what you get is a great marketing slogan and sell a lot of beer.

But what it gets you is the synergy of the to. The sum is greater than the parts.

Why do I put on my seat belts. partly that bell that goes off if I don’t have them on. Partly because I know that I’m at risk of getting pulled over by any of the police officiers around and I sure don’t need that. Partly because of the pictures of the people who didn’t have their seat belts on when they should of had them on. Partly because of the 5 year old will remind me every time.

It adds up. Can it be done without the increase in the price of fuel, sure. But it will be harder. other programs to decrease gasoline fuel use will be less effective.

If we were to have a 2.60 dollar gasoline tax on, we could eliminate all property taxes in the United States. (142 billion gallons, 2007: Property taxes 2.6 percent of GNP, 2002: 14 trillion dollar GNP)

Or this. The United States uses more fuel for transportation than europe, japan, china and India combined.

By: KLA

KLA — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:36:16 +0000

Re: fuel taxes.
There was some discussion earlier about europeans enjoying higher average fuel economy than the US.
That is true. Actually many of these efficient european cars are made by the subsidiaries of GM and Ford in Europe.
It would be easy to import them, or build them here, but it isn’t done.

Nobody in this discussion has asked why.

The higher efficiency of european vehicles is simply due to the fact that europe’s car fleet has a high diesel percentage. But the cost of the higher efficiency is higher pollution in NOx, particles and so on.
Europe’s pollution laws are less strict than those of the US. Especially those in CA and those states that follow CARB regulations.
Although progress is made to make cars more fuel efficient worldwide, to the tune of about 1% per year for the last 20 years, these gains are continuously offset by stricter emission and safety requirements, which add weight and therefore fuel consumption. Especially in the US.

The laws of physics simply can’t be legislated out of existence.
I am very familiar with the european situation, the fuel taxes there were NOT put in place to increase mileage. They are simply there to increase revenue for the government. In fact, there are now laws in progress in several european countries, to tax the efficient diesel cars MORE than the less efficient gasoline cars via registration tax, as even higher taxes on diesel would not fly politically. The (more or less admitted) reason is to offset the loss in fuel-tax revenue by those more efficient cars.

By: Bob Wallace

Bob Wallace — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:20:40 +0000

I didn’t say raising taxes that high was logical. I’m just mad at people who get paid millions and millions of dollars a year. ;o)

(I also don’t believe that correlation proves causation.)

We would, I believe, benefit from some ‘wealth leveling’. People should be able to do well by doing a good job. But it sure seems to me like things have gotten out of hand.

A $20,000,000 annual bonus when your company has had a loosing year? On top of a multi-million dollar salary?

And the people 2-3 grade levels below you are making less than $100,000?

And just a few more steps down people who are working hard are barely able to earn a living?

Something just isn’t working as it should….

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:16:34 +0000

Joe Romm — Ex situ enhanced weathering of olivine will permanently remove one tonne of carbon dioxide for every (about) one and one-half tonnes of olivine mined, crushed and ground to rock flour, then baked with air and water in an autoclave into limestone and other stuff. The resulting powder would make a fine soil amendent, by the way.

Somewhat to my amazment, this looks to cost only about $20 per tonne of CO2 permanently removed. This means doing everything right at the olivine formation; there is a more than ample supply of formations in India, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia (off the top of my head; this does not end the list). Either peridotite or dunite will do, but so will aptite in mine tailings:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFM.B33A1014W

I don’t know what IEA is talking about, but I suspect they are estimating the cost to cause fossil fuel users to switch to using something else. If you provide the link, I’ll attempt to check.

By: llewelly

llewelly — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:55:18 +0000

Personally I’m for drastically increasing income tax for those making over $200,000 a year.

Hm. What was the US economy like back when the tax brackets ran up to 90%?
That’s right. It was the strongest it has ever been.
Contrary to the popular mythology of the liebertarians the record of history implies that harshly taxing the rich is correlated with a strong economy.