Posted on 10/13/2008 1:22:48 PM PDT by thackney
While motorists celebrate lower gas prices, a former U.S. Department of Energy official sees an opportunity: Raise fuel taxes to help end America's dependence on foreign oil.
"Unfortunately, it's high prices that cause people to be careful about energy use," said Jay Hakes, who lived in Grand Rapids as a child and is director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta.
Hakes will speak three places locally Thursday and Friday about his first book, "A Declaration of Energy Independence: The American Presidency and the Energy Crisis in the 21st Century."
Among his seven recommendations for regaining independence: a tax on fuel and rebates to all Americans, including those who don't drive.
It would punish those who burn the most gasoline and reward those who burn less, eventually driving down demand, he said.
"It's carrots and sticks, is what it is," Hakes said in a phone interview from Atlanta. "It's hard to explain, which is why politicians shy away from talking about programs like that.
"Only two presidents have told the American public that oil prices should be higher (Carter and Ford), and both lost re-election," said Hakes, head of the Energy Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy under President Bill Clinton.
"Presidents since that time are not willing to say that."
Hakes' book describes how the U.S. gained energy independence in the 1970s under President Ford with the nation's first fuel-efficiency standards for cars and the opening of the Alaskan pipeline, but how the nation lost that independence by 1997.
He calls the Clinton years "the lost decade" for energy policy.
Also among his recommendations for change: storing more oil in emergency reserves, increasing automobile fuel-efficiency by 1.5 miles per gallon a year, developing more alternative fuels and using more hybrid cars.
A higher tax would reflect the true cost of oil, including the damage to the environment and the price of the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf, he said.
In his book, Hakes' research shows oil and the need to maintain access to supplies in the Persian Gulf were behind U.S. involvement in Iraq in 1990 and again in 2003.
Hakes, 64, was 5 when his family moved to Grand Rapids, where his father was president of Grand Rapids Baptist Bible Seminary, now Cornerstone University. He attended Riverside Junior High School before moving in the ninth grade.
Another “tax our way to prosperity” proponent... no thanks!
you don’t get energy independence with higher taxes. you get it by allowing us to develop our own resources
Lets lower taxes and lessen the burden people pay for fuel. How about taking congress and the house out of playing with our fuel taxes and having independent commissions who are not appointed by a political party manage the funds. If they can save cash and lower the total fuel tax in a state, it makes that state more competitive and that state could attract more business........
Right now here in Michigan, we are 44th out of states to get our federal fuel taxes back........way to go Debbie & Carl!!!
We need to re-instate public executions for people that come up with this kind of crap.
''What a maroon!''
We have more oil that the Saudis, how about we become an oil EXPORTING nation!
Hey Hakes, rhymes with Fakes, I have to go to work no matter what the price of gas. I challenge you to a Duel.
RAISE taxes on gasoline.
Yeah, that’ll equalize things.
What there ought be, and isn’t, is a consumer tax based on some equitable denominator. Say, BTU’s of energy consumed (none of this “carbon cap and trade”, which is essentially a rationing plan). This would be applied across the board, and obviously, some goods and services would have a smaller “BTU” component than others. The emphasis would be on efficiency, like LED light sources replacing compact fluorescent bulbs (they already exist, you know). Imagine, approximately one watt of electricity, yielding the light of a fifty-watt incandescent bulbe, or a 12-watt compact fluorescent bulb. And it all screws into the same sized socket. Instant on, fantastic lifetime (50,000 hours, nearly six years CONTINUOUSLY burning), at even $50 each, they would be money savers.
And every damned one of them would be made in China.
For this guy, sadism is required for compliance.
They use taxes as weapons, not for actually paying for running government. They frivolously use taxes for things totally not intended. Taxes are punitive, punishing things in the hands of these people.
Using too much of something? Up the taxes on it. Too many people we don’t like doing too well? Up the taxes on them. Have buddies you want to fund or pay back? Up the taxes on people and funnel the money over there. Want to fund all your non-vital social welfare policies? Up the taxes on productive people and transfer the wealth. Die with too much money? Tax it AGAIN and confiscate it from the heirs. Want to pay taxes twice? Be a small businessman and really watch yourself get screwed.
Time to start shrugging, Atlases.
The exist, but I don't like the price yet.
You are a little optimistic in your 1W = 50W, but still great at 7W = 75W
The fuel tax increase must also release ANWR and the coasts of all drilling bans. Phase in both the fuel tax increase, and the cap gains and income tax decreases simultaneously, over say, ten years to help those who don't pay any income tax to deal with the higher fuel cost. Tax other commodities, if you wish, with the same stipulation-equal reductions in income and cap gains taxes-static scoring.
In ten years, we are within easy striking distance of a national sales tax, with the following benefits.
1-Less money going to the A-rabs, and Hugo Chavez.
2-Corporations become more globally competitive by virtue of the removal of the corporate income tax from the cost of their products and services, here and abroad. Exports increase, trade deficit narrows or goes positive.
3-CONSERVATION of energy, and a switch toward alternative liquid fuels will become TOP PRIORITY in every household and company conference room in the country-and the market will name the winners, not the government. The automakers will sell us what we want because we will demand more fuel efficiency. We could possibly even stop bailing out AMTRAK.
Tell it to Disney World Six Flags. sh-thead
Yeah, I'm sure he pines for the good old days when the peanut farmer had long gas lines across the country.
I suggest the dem congress and Obama start talking about this immediately, pronouncing it at the debates even.
bass
ackwards
Yes, of course, lets make people pay more for gasoline. Those who can afford it easily won’t cut back their driving that much if at all, and those who live on tight budgets will suffer the most, not because the free market can’t provide them affordable gas, but because some bureaucrat wants to bring more money to Washington.
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