Americans Driving Less so Tax Them More!
We’re no longer using enough fossil fuel in this country so Washington wants to raise the federal gasoline tax:
Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.
That has the federal commission that oversees financing for transportation talking about increasing the federal fuel tax.
A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by the commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.
Once again proving that politicians never learn from history. Raising taxes will never — in the long run — make up for revenue shortfalls.
And when the eco-nuts get their way and we’re all driving peanut-sized cars or taking mass-transit, will they have to raise taxes again?
19 Responses to “Americans Driving Less so Tax Them More!”
on 02 Jan 2009 at 11:25 am # Lazarus Long
And when we start buying fewer “things” the sales taxes will have to be raised.
on 02 Jan 2009 at 1:10 pm # Daniel
Here in Maryland, we have been suffering from the largest tax increases the Gov and legislature hit on us last year.
And they wonder why their revenues are STILL falling.
We find new ways to save/not spend - and they are STILL crying they have to raise more taxes.
on 02 Jan 2009 at 1:47 pm # Sharpaxe
No good deed goes unpunished by the government.
on 02 Jan 2009 at 11:32 pm # Tom
AH, but you fail to see something. They plan to raise diesel even more. Guess what that does to everything else, yep, jacks up the price more.
They want to tie it into inflation which will make for ever escalating inflation. When nearly every single product is carried by diesel starts going up just watch for the blood to flow.
If we’re driving less do we NEED to maintain the streets to the same standard?
I was thinking about this after I blogged it myself. Besides the need for new industries and wasteful government employees to monitor the nanny state tracking GPS systems they plan, I’m willing to bet that a mileage tax will be at least double the current gas tax, plus other taxes will have to be increased to cover the additional expenses involved with the program, and its enforcement.
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on 03 Jan 2009 at 12:47 pm # Erik in Colo
Why do the lefties promote mass transit so much?
Because it will be transit.. you know, for the masses (of proles).
It won’t apply to them, of course.
on 03 Jan 2009 at 1:51 pm # Jim
Those shirts are pretty cool, the English isn’t that great; but they get the point across. I’m kind of suprised that there isn’t a big outrage over these shirts. You know the Mullahs aren’t at big on freedom of expression.
on 03 Jan 2009 at 2:56 pm # Daniel
Here’s a question.
Does any portion of a bus/train ticket go toward highway/road work??
And another point.
If the government (local AND national) would curtail/lessen/eliminate earmarks - do you think enough savings would be realized to NOT need to raise fuel taxes?????
on 04 Jan 2009 at 4:53 am # dagamore
Most US Mass trans system fail to pay for them selfs, most fail to come even close to covering 60% of there own operating costs.
I reacll CA going in to hissy fits about this a few months ago. The Government told people to drive less, and to get smaller(read better mpg) cars. and when the people did they were pissed that they were now buying less gas. Dont anyone in government understand that A might lead to B?
on 04 Jan 2009 at 5:14 am # OrangeNeckInNY
In the meantime, the Congress critters all voted themselves a pay raise on average of $2,400. How many fucking congress asshats do we have? Meanwhile, I just lost my job. Unemployment benefits aren’t going to cover my living expenses and I’m going to have to take out my 401K in order to get by. Better do that anyway what with the Democrats’ talk about seizing our retirement funds so they can redistribute the wealth in a government controlled program of social security for all. Motherfuckers!
on 04 Jan 2009 at 10:07 am # Rich
It is just like the utility companies, many years ago continuing to today the gas and electric comapnies were monopolies that were guarneteed a certain rate of return. When the government started pushing them to give out and encourage saving electricity and gas many people responded and so their (the utility companies)revenues went down. So of course they went and asked for rate hikes because they were making less. Duh!
on 04 Jan 2009 at 12:38 pm # Brigid
The scariest thing of all this discussion on increased tax revenue for road upkeep was the Democratic idea to install GPS on vehicles so we could be taxed not only on how much we drove but on WHAT ROADS.
Oregon is testing it with the full support of their governor and “volunteer” drivers. Of course he wants to raise tax revenue. The current gas tax isn’t generating enough revenue to pay for all the pet projects that have to be taken care of to satisfy the lobbyists that help put them in office.
on 04 Jan 2009 at 2:21 pm # rjh
So how do you proposed to pay for roads? For several decades the practice has been to pay 2/3 from fuel taxes and tolls, and 1/3 from general revenue. (The 1/3 covers costs like policing, snow removal, local roads, etc.) The problem of inadequate funding for maintenance has been there for well over a decade. The pace of repairs has been lagging badly, because the fuel tax income was inadequate.
After a decade of saying “brick wall ahead”, the brick wall is clearly in sight. The fuel taxes will need to increase, or the subsidy from non-users will have to increase. I think that the 1/3 from general revenue is already more than generous. A user tax, like the fuel tax, is the fair way to get the other 2/3.
As for allocation questions:
1) of the 18.3 cents/gal gasoline federal tax, 2.86 goes to transit. In major cities this is probably a better deal than road construction. Consider the cost of Boston’s big dig versus the cost of transit. Badly run as transit is, it is still less expensive than urban construction of highways.
2) for bus tickets, their diesel fuel costs include tax, so part of the ticket price does go to highways. Rail transit stopped paying diesel tax in 2001 when that tax was repealed. Until then, railroads were subsidizing highways.
on 04 Jan 2009 at 6:56 pm # DCE
Those who ignore the Laffer Curve are doomed to fall on the wrong side of the curve again and again. It seems the taxers never seem to learn the lesson that once taxes exceed a certain level revenues will fall off.
As the saying goes, if you subsidize something, you get more if it. If you tax something, you get less of it…including less revenue.
on 04 Jan 2009 at 10:12 pm # emdfl
Here’s a radical idea. Spend the gas tax revenue on the &%* roads and not on %*^^%& mass transit.
on 05 Jan 2009 at 9:52 am # Tom
The real problem is government.
Stop seeking to control everything, playing gas against the gorebal warming and terrorism spouted by the gorebots.
Just wait, they’ll get their GPS because the sheep will go along with it, then the data will start to get used in court and people we go to bikes or start building electric or something to avoid the gas and they’ll be back with something even more invasive. That’s what government does.
“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy”
on 06 Jan 2009 at 9:49 pm # Roberta X
The problem (other than the fact that they’re taxes and therefore sucky) with gas tax revenues is they don’t keep pace with inflation; it’s X many cents per gallon rather than X percent of the price. If it was the latter, they’d raise themselves — and a period of higher gas prices would be a windfall for the highways.
on 10 Jan 2009 at 3:21 am # straightarrow
The very real problem is that the money raised for road and trainsportation infrastructure keeps being stolen.
When i was driving for a living there was $138 billion surplus in the fund. It disappeared and we got another tax increase because the roads and bridges were in disrepair and “there was no money to fix them”. Nobody ever did tell what happened to the $138 billion.
on 10 Jan 2009 at 3:22 am # straightarrow
it won’t be any different the next time around, either.