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I Think Democrats Should Push All Out For This One.

Should the Government Raise Gasoline Taxes To Force People to Buy Fuel Efficient Cars

  • No. Not the government's job.

    Votes: 15 88.2%

  • Yes, I won't buy a hybrid unless someone tells me too

    Votes: 1 5.9%

  • Yes, and people can't prove they've bought GM, they should lose their tax refund.

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Total voters
    17
S

Scarecrow Akhbar

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Gas-tax hike looks good to GM chiefIn a surprising turnabout, General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said Tuesday that increasing the federal gasoline tax to guarantee a minimum price of $4 a gallon is an idea "worthy of consideration."

Few industries have been more vigorously opposed to hiking the gas tax than automakers. But GM, which is betting its future on high-priced, energy-efficient cars, has switched its historic view and is now open to the federal government setting a new, higher floor on fuel, which would act as an incentive for consumers to buy hybrid and electric cars.

"It's great that smart people are talking" about ideas to conserve energy, Mr. Wagoner told reporters Tuesday. He was referring to recent comments by Michael Jackson, the chief executive of AutoNation, who recommended a huge increase in the gas tax to encourage American consumers to buy fuel-efficient vehicles.

"Michael Jackson is a smart guy," and his idea deserves to be considered, Mr. Wagoner said at a briefing sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

When the price of gasoline jumped above $4 a gallon in July, AutoNation, the nations largest chain of new-car dealers, had a two-day supply of Honda Civic gasoline-electric hybrids. By the end of the year, when gas prices dipped significantly, AutoNation had a 148-day supply of hybrids.

"I have fuel-efficient vehicles parked at my dealerships as far as the eye can see," Mr. Jackson was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. "I can't give them away."

Gas priced at $4 a gallon would be "a good start," Mr. Jackson said. The chairman and CEO of General Motors did not disagree.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.91 on Tuesday, according to the Energy Information Administration. To reach $4 a gallon, the federal gas tax would have to increase from 18.4 cents a gallon today to more than $2 per gallon.

A GM spokesman acknowledged that the automaker is thinking about the price of gasoline as an incentive to buy hybrids. "Everybody talks about $4 a gallon because, until gas prices hit $4, nobody saw any shift in consumer behavior," said Greg Martin, GM's Washington, D.C., spokesman. "Only then did people put fuel efficiency front and center."

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandated an "aggressive increase in mileage standards," Mr. Martin said. As a result, GM is building fuel efficiency into its entire fleet. However, a lot of factors that raise fuel efficiency "are not particularly sexy," he said, adding that it would take $4-a-gallon gas for the market to shift consumer behavior.

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Go for it, Dems.

But make sure it's adjusted for inflation, too.
 
If the government is willing to finish paying off my current car and then buy me a new more fuel efficient car then I'm game! If not, they can screw themselves.
 
Terrible idea. Why artifically inflate the price that much, just so people buy a particular brand of car?

If the federal government wants $2 a gallon tax on gasoline, I want ****ing flying cars, not hybrids.
 
Arch Enemy said:
How do you go about weighing a stock? :)
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First, you get a balance scale. Then you put Rosie O'Donnell on one side of the scale, and the stocks on the other. If they weight the same, you then take half the stocks off and you've got a ton of 'em.
 
WI Crippler said:
Terrible idea. Why artifically inflate the price that much, just so people buy a particular brand of car?

If the federal government wants $2 a gallon tax on gasoline, I want ****ing flying cars, not hybrids.
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I want a Leprechaun chauffeur, too.
 
I guess there are probably a lot of michael jacksons out there. still it's weird to see things like this

"Michael Jackson is a smart guy," and his idea deserves to be considered
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Of course there should be gasoline taxes. Gasoline consumption (and more generally, oil consumption) has all sorts of negative externalities: Pollution, terrorism, the weakening of American geopolitical strength and the empowering of our enemies, etc.

The people who are most responsible for those externalities should most certainly have to pay for them, instead of passing the burden off to the American public as a whole. A gasoline tax is simple and requires no government bureaucracy; it would use market forces to dissuade people from consuming as much gasoline as they currently do.
 
The GM spokesman also stated he thinks this tax should take affect on the same day the Volt launches ;)
 
This would be a wonderful way to destroy what is left of the economy.

(/irony)


G.
 
Kandahar said:
A gasoline tax is simple and requires no government bureaucracy; it would use market forces to dissuade people from consuming as much gasoline as they currently do.
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Supply should be the determining factor, not taxation.
 
I think they should push for it as well. Democrats will shoot themselves in the foot over this issue. Count on it.
 
WI Crippler said:
Supply should be the determining factor, not taxation.
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Why? Supply doesn't take into account the pollution from YOUR car going into MY lungs. It doesn't take into account MY gasoline consumption funding terrorism in the Middle East, to which the United States then has to devote tax dollars to fight. It doesn't take into account the weakening of the United States and the strengthening of Russia.

These are public problems, not individual problems. As such, the cost of gasoline should reflect those costs.
 
Kandahar said:
Why? Supply doesn't take into account the pollution from YOUR car going into MY lungs. It doesn't take into account MY gasoline consumption funding terrorism in the Middle East, to which the United States then has to devote tax dollars to fight. It doesn't take into account the weakening of the United States and the strengthening of Russia.

These are public problems, not individual problems. As such, the cost of gasoline should reflect those costs.
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Why do you guys always want to make other people pay to assuage your self-flagellating guilt over something or other? Invent a high performance sports car that runs on whining and bitching. The world has an endless supply of that.


images
 
Kandahar said:
The people who are most responsible for those externalities should most certainly have to pay for them, instead of passing the burden off to the American public as a whole.
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That there is vying for weirdest post ever.

EVERYONE in America benefits from the sale and use of gasoline, either directly as a fuel for their transport, or as fuel for the transport of their goods and services.

So when you're saying the people "responsible" for those "externalities", do you mean we should tax terrorism, or do you mean you support that fuel tax....but that means, of course, "passing the burden off to the American public as a whole"....because the American public as a whole is consuming the gas.

Kandahar said:
A gasoline tax is simple and requires no government bureaucracy; it would use market forces to dissuade people from consuming as much gasoline as they currently do.
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No. It wouldn't use market force to dissuade people from buying gas, it would bend the market out of shape. Not to mention that it would crash the economy and make crawling out of this recession impossible.

I still wouldn't buy GM.

I'm never buying a GM car again.
 
Kandahar said:
Why? Supply doesn't take into account the pollution from YOUR car going into MY lungs. It doesn't take into account MY gasoline consumption funding terrorism in the Middle East, to which the United States then has to devote tax dollars to fight. It doesn't take into account the weakening of the United States and the strengthening of Russia.

These are public problems, not individual problems. As such, the cost of gasoline should reflect those costs.
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The answer to US dollars going to fund terrorists in Russia and the Middle East is easy.

Drill here, drill now, drill fast.
 
akyron said:
Why do you guys always want to make other people pay to assuage your self-flagellating guilt over something or other?
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What are you talking about? Do you deny that the American taxpayers - not just Hummer drivers - bear the cost for environmental cleanup and fighting terrorism?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
EVERYONE in America benefits from the sale and use of gasoline, either directly as a fuel for their transport, or as fuel for the transport of their goods and services.

So when you're saying the people "responsible" for those "externalities", do you mean we should tax terrorism, or do you mean you support that fuel tax....but that means, of course, "passing the burden off to the American public as a whole"....because the American public as a whole is consuming the gas.
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Everyone consumes to varying degrees. With a gas tax that applied equally to every gallon of gasoline sold, you would be taxed exactly your share of the consumption and not a penny more or less.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No. It wouldn't use market force to dissuade people from buying gas, it would bend the market out of shape.
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Obviously you do not understand the difference between using market forces and having a utopian laissez-faire free market economy. :roll:

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Not to mention that it would crash the economy and make crawling out of this recession impossible.
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The tax could be offset by cutting payroll taxes by an appropriate amount.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
I still wouldn't buy GM.

I'm never buying a GM car again.
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I'm not sure where you got the idea that I want you to buy GM or give a crap what company you buy from. Perhaps you have mistaken me for an Evil Liberal Bogeyman who believes everything that you imagine liberals believe. :roll:
 
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Kandahar said:
Why? Supply doesn't take into account the pollution from YOUR car going into MY lungs. It doesn't take into account MY gasoline consumption funding terrorism in the Middle East, to which the United States then has to devote tax dollars to fight. It doesn't take into account the weakening of the United States and the strengthening of Russia.

These are public problems, not individual problems. As such, the cost of gasoline should reflect those costs.
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Oh your lungs are fine. If driving cars was hurting peoples lungs, we'd all be dead by now. Most of our gas is brought in from Mexico and Canada. So I guess we should negatively impact their economies, before there is a need to.

Alternatives are fine, but they aren't economically feasible. Artifically replacing an energy source, with a less economical one is one of the dumbest things we could do. When alternatives become economical, people will buy them. There's no reason to rush into it, before it needs to happen though.
 
Kandahar said:
Everyone consumes to varying degrees. With a gas tax that applied equally to every gallon of gasoline sold, you would be taxed exactly your share of the consumption and not a penny more or less.
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Yeah. I know that.

You're the one pretending that a gasoline tax wouldn't be carried by everyone living in the country.


Kandahar said:
Obviously you do not understand the difference between using market forces and having a utopian laissez-faire free market economy. :roll:
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Obviously, I do.

Prices are set by market forces. When prices are set by command...the market forces are distorted.

So, where do you get the idea that the government exists to alter the behavior of the general law abiding population, anyway?

Kandahar said:
The tax could be offset by cutting payroll taxes by an appropriate amount.
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No, it couldn't.

Wages paid don't correlate to fuel taxes paid.

Kandahar said:
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I want you to buy GM or give a crap what company you buy from. Perhaps you have mistaken me for an Evil Liberal Bogeyman who believes everything that you imagine liberals believe. :roll:
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Don't worry, you've missed the point of the entire thread.

Here: The leading article was a story about how the CEO of GM was saying that the government should tax gasoline to establish a minimum per gallon price of gasoline of $4.00. Not for any overblown silly environmental concerns, but because no one's buying GM's products and GM is going to pin it's future viability on sales of a hybrid vehicle, a vehicle which will face higher demand if gasoline was over-the-top expensive like it was last year when it tipped the economy into collapse.

Personally, I think the guy if full of little red ants and I'm never buying one of his company's cars, ever again.

While somethings can be said in favor of "buy American", it's plain stupid to do that when the seller is an anti-American boob trying to extort sales from a captive market.

Perhaps you could read the OP sometime, if you're interested.
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Yeah. I know that.

You're the one pretending that a gasoline tax wouldn't be carried by everyone living in the country.
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Uhh when the **** did I ever suggest any such thing? That's the whole bloody point of a gas tax. There's really no point in my debating you if you aren't going to read my posts.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Obviously, I do.

Prices are set by market forces. When prices are set by command...the market forces are distorted.

So, where do you get the idea that the government exists to alter the behavior of the general law abiding population, anyway?
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Because pollution, terrorism, and foreign policy are public problems that are funded by the government.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, it couldn't.

Wages paid don't correlate to fuel taxes paid.
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Sure they do. If the government earns $X from a fuel tax, then they cut payroll taxes by $X. Pretty simple.
 
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