[Bas]

This was posted by Leanan on the newspage, but thought it deserved it's own thread:

Real Men Tax Gas

Do we owe the French and other Europeans a second look when it comes to their willingness to exercise power in today’s world? Was it really fair for some to call the French and other Europeans “cheese-eating surrender monkeys?” Is it time to restore the French in “French fries” at the Congressional dining room, and stop calling them “Freedom Fries?” Why do I ask these profound questions?

Because we are once again having one of those big troop debates: Do we send more forces to Afghanistan, and are we ready to do what it takes to “win” there? This argument will be framed in many ways, but you can set your watch on these chest-thumpers: “toughness,” “grit,” “fortitude,” “willingness to do whatever it takes to realize big stakes” — all the qualities we tend to see in ourselves, with some justification, but not in Europeans.

But are we really that tough? If the metric is a willingness to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and consider the use of force against Iran, the answer is yes. And we should be eternally grateful to the Americans willing to go off and fight those fights. But in another way — when it comes to doing things that would actually weaken the people we are sending our boys and girls to fight — we are total wimps. We are, in fact, the wimps of the world. We are, in fact, so wimpy our politicians are afraid to even talk about how wimpy we are.

I highly recommend reading the whole article here:NYT

[Concerned]

I love it when a let it rip globalist, NAFTA loving, free marketeer starts to think you know what maybe socialist meddling is for the best after all.

Witness the banks and all the arguments of why we had to save them. LOL

This is great.

[Fishman]

This guy has never impressed me with his logic.
Why we have less nuclear power than France, our vesion of "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" prevent it
Why we are struggling in Afganistan, our presidential version of "cheese-eating surrender monkey"
Why no health care will pass in a Democraticly controled House, Senate, and Presidency, our Democratic "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"
Why a gas tax, cap and trade won't pass, a few of our folks have studied economics.

[rangerone314]

A gas tax makes more sense than cap and trade. I wouldn't be happy with it since I currently don't have anyway to reduce the amount I drive.

Simple result for me is cutting back even further on spending, which is already nearly non-existent.

Every $ I pay in gas tax is also less in sales tax I pay to the state.

[Fishman]

Ranger, you nailed it. In a recession does one impose a gas tax when then natural result is
"Simple result for me is cutting back even further on spending"
Perhaps, just perhaps, the government could consider your own personal solution, cut back on spending, instead of adding tax to close deficits.

[dinopello]

Wouldn't have to tax anything if we just remove the massive subsidies that apply to driving - no federal funding of roads, bridges, tunnels, garissons in the middle east and africa only there to protect oil supplies. Remove all subsidies to transportation and it might take a while but we would be back to the primacy of ports and port cities, rail and mass transit. You would have to remove all government dictates regarding parking requirements on private developers and density restrictions etc as well in order to make building a town legal again. On the other hand, it probably is too late for that.

[pup55]

Friedman points out elsewhere, we are already paying a tax for our gas, except we are paying it to Saudi. They use it to finance the Taliban and Osama, and the "other side" of the war on terrorism.

We are spending a lot of time, effort and energy defending our oil supply against forces that we finance ourselves. The American way of life is not negotiable. That's our national thought disorder. We are in complete denial.

The last politician that suggested we encourage car pooling was John Kerry, who was subsequently ridiculed in the famous "four man bicycle" commercial. No one supporting this notion will ever be elected until the disruptive nationwide shortages actually occur and we are faced with catastrophe.

Down in Hillbilly territory, in the past couple of years, during the height of the price spikes and the couple of shutdowns that were encountered due to hurricanes, the local politicians actually REDUCED fuel taxes so as to encourage continued consumption while the problem passed.

What this still comes down to is: someone is going to have to walk, and no politician will have the courage to say it until absolutely forced to do so.

Silly humans

[rangerone314]

Ranger, you nailed it. In a recession does one impose a gas tax when then natural result is
"Simple result for me is cutting back even further on spending"
Perhaps, just perhaps, the government could consider your own personal solution, cut back on spending, instead of adding tax to close deficits.

The more the government tightens the noose, the more I'm going to cut back and be self-sufficient. (I'm going to ramp up gardens & crops in anticipation of this and peak oil results... someday, no grocery store runs except for milk, and not even that if I get a dairy goat)

My wife & my 2 Honda Civics have of 200,000 miles between them total (Someday that will be 1,000,000 each) I'm not planning on buying any new cars for a LONG time. Either I will buy an electric if I can afford one or if not society will have already collapsed by the time a new car is an issue.

I buy maybe a pair of shoes in a year or two if I'm unlucky and a pair wears out. I don't have any big screen TVs. I have a few computers, but I custom built them all from the motherboard up to save money. We WERE eating out once every 3 months, but that has gone down to 0 as a family although I do eat out modestly with co-workers once every 2 weeks.

If they raise taxes on me, I cut back even tighter on spending, and the economy suffers, and ultimately their tax earnings. Wife & me each get $25 every two weeks as "mad money" for personal discretionary spending. I saved up recently with $50 got Asian strawhats for gardening, a Japanese iron bell, and DVD of Babylon 5 Crusade. I can always reduce the "mad money" allowance per paycheck. Almost everything can be stretched... haircuts, etc.

I do a lot on a cash basis, where I allocate money into envelopes for groceries, entertainment, haircuts. (when I get enough cash in the envelope for a haircut, I get one)

[mos6507]

I can't get over Friedman's use of "the stone age didn't end because of a lack of stones" quote that he threw out when talking about peak oil. His technofix optimism is highly misguided.

[Plantagenet]

The Europeans tax gas but they are also provide a wonderful network of subsidized inter city trains and networks of electric light rail commuter lines into every city so people can travel without using cars.

I'd support a new gas tax if it was dedicated to building electric trains and commuter system across the US.

[AgentR]

I've always been a fan of a gasoline tax, but in a neutral form. IE, we eliminate other taxes to match the income gained with the new tax.

Taxing gasoline, and fuel in general goes right to the heart of taxing that which requires government resources to sustain. Does the housekeeper really require, outside of transportation and supplies, much in the way of government support? Does the accountant outside of trans. and electricity really require much in the way of resources? If you flat out tax the fuel sources, you distribute the national tax burden in a very fair way based upon the quantity of government resources a productive person requires.

My proposal would be to repeal the income and capital gains taxes, take the total receipts from them plus a nice margin, divide by barrels/tons consumed, and there's your tax rate.

I'm certain I'd be lynched by 98% of the American populace if I ever said such a thing from a position of notoriety. There wouldn't be enough of me left to make gerbil chow.

[rangerone314]

I can't get over Friedman's use of "the stone age didn't end because of a lack of stones" quote that he threw out when talking about peak oil. His technofix optimism is highly misguided.

Maybe he thinks we'll find dilithium crystals or something like that from Star Trek, LOL!

Economists have such a narrow, human mindframe. They look at a few hundred years of human history and draw a conclusion from it about the future. Take a look at the Earth over millions of years.

Something always has to happen once. The oil age WILL end because of a lack of oil. Past results do not guarantee future results. "The stone age didn't end because of a lack of stones" sort of thinking is like someone who plays golf during a thunderstorm several dozen times and concludes from the lack of incidents that it is a safe activity. Then one day he gets struck by lightning and dies.

[Fishman]

I could handle a tax neutral gas tax also. Amzing, we almost have consensus here.

[Plantagenet]

---you can't have trains lines without BIG GOVERNMENT.

We were all mostly nicely agreeing we need gas taxes and maybe even trains, and then Pstarr goes and drags politics into it.

Actually, building trains is more complicated then waving a magic wand and saying the words "big government." Virtually EVERY European country has a better train and urban light rail network system then the US.....from the "Big government" French right through to the decentralized, armed Swiss, to the dysfunctional Greeks. Some of the systems are private...some are public. The Europeans have a culture of trains and mass transit and have upgraded networks and right-of-ways continually. The US also had world-class train networks and urban streetcar systems in the 19th century right up into the 20th century, without "Big Government" building them. US train systems were private and In fact, "big government" is partly to blame for killing off the US trains, by unfairly subsidizing freeways and highway construction.

[americandream]

Much of Europe's infrastructure is a legacy of it's extensive labour socialist past.

In contrast with America, the best that Europe can come up with in terms of the far right socialism for the rich of that sort that is synonymous with America was/is Hitlerite style demagogery and the more recent Thatcherism which as we see, is rapidly turning into barefaced bailouts for the rich ala national socialism.

However, we owe the bulk of Europe's labour oriented populist measures such as its public transport network, to labour socialism (I expressly don't include autobahns (say cars everybody) and the notorious gas chambers in that list, the former which advanced the German automobile industries cause and the latter which advanced the cause of socialism for the rich.) .

---you can't have trains lines without BIG GOVERNMENT.

We were all mostly nicely agreeing we need gas taxes and maybe even trains, and then Pstarr goes and drags politics into it.

Actually, building trains is more complicated then waving a magic wand and saying the words "big government." Virtually EVERY European country has a better train and urban light rail network system then the US.....from the "Big government" French right through to the decentralized, armed Swiss, to the dysfunctional Greeks. Some of the systems are private...some are public. The Europeans have a culture of trains and mass transit and have upgraded networks and right-of-ways continually. The US also had world-class train networks and urban streetcar systems in the 19th century right up into the 20th century, without "Big Government" building them. US train systems were private and In fact, "big government" is partly to blame for killing off the US trains, by unfairly subsidizing freeways and highway construction.

The Europeans have a better train system because the auto companies did not ensure their demise. Anyway, I was not referring to ownership but rather development. It will require right-of-way management and in some cases outright eminent domain to clear away pesky private property. Then tax dollars to build out the old lines. I don't think the American public is in the mood for more Enrons.

[vtsnowedin]

A major increase in the gas tax? That might actually work so of course it has no chance of happening. To do it right it would have to rise on a regular predetermined schedule so that no one is bankrupted by a sudden big rise. Perhaps $.20 per gallon every six months for ten years. That way when you go to trade in your present clunker you will know what the gas tax will be throughout its life and buy accordingly. It also gives time to build dense housing served by trains etc. before the demand hits.

[americandream]

The problem with this picture is that the "we" who would like to institute these changes are invariably outside looking in.

the best way to avoid peak-oil collapse is to redirect American might to the disassembly of suburbia. Use the gas tax and government mandate to drill light rail lines through suburbia, and develop intercity electric freight and high speed passenger rail lines.

Maybe then we can address the real issue: a dispersed auto-dependent living arrangement that will fail soon. How about tax incentives and zoning changes to recycle and reuse redundant energy -inefficient structures into concentrated community centers, leaving open land for agriculture. crazy stuff