Posted on 02/22/2013 3:25:08 PM PST by matt04
THE average price of gasoline in the United States, $3.78 on Thursday, has been steadily climbing for more than a month and is approaching the three previous post-recession peaks, in May 2011 and in April and September of last year.
But if our goal is to get Americans to drive less and use more fuel-efficient vehicles, and to reduce air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases, gas prices need to be even higher. The current federal gasoline tax, 18.4 cents a gallon, has been essentially stable since 1993; in inflation-adjusted terms, its fallen by 40 percent since then.
...
Greater efficiency packs less of a psychological punch because consumers pay more only when they buy a new car. In contrast, motorists are reminded regularly of the price at the pump. But the new fuel-efficiency standards are far less efficient than raising gasoline prices.
In a paper published online this week in the journal Energy Economics, I and other scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimate that the new standards will cost the economy on the whole for the same reduction in gas use at least six times more than a federal gas tax of roughly 45 cents per dollar of gasoline. That is because a gas tax provides immediate, direct incentives for drivers to reduce gasoline use, while the efficiency standards must squeeze the reduction out of new vehicles only. The new standards also encourage more driving, not less.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Shoud I thank them for the higher prices on goods or the less disposable income I have? I can't decide.
If the NY Times is for it, you know its bad
I did not realize it was the Gov’s job to tell me what type of vehicle I drive and how much I should drive.
I thought I had the right to pursue my own happiness and drive whenever and wherever I want to at MY DISCRETION.
It is the Gov’s job to ensure a stabile economy so maybe we should lower gas prices and develop more economic activity!
The real tax kicker comes in US state taxes; which hover in the 40 to 60 cents per gallon range.
I have no problem is New York staters want to raise their gasoline taxes!
Go for it!
I have no problem is New York staters want to raise their gasoline taxes!
Go for it!
There is not a problem under the sun that can not be solved with higher taxes...
I actually had a leftie tell me that $8.00 or $9.00/gal gas was the KEY to bringing back economic prosperity! He insisted that it would restore manufacturing to the US by maiing it too expensive to ship things in from China.
“Gas tax”: the ‘fair’ tax that takes money from fuel car and truck drivers (and their customers) and spends it on mass transit riders and Prius owners- IE NYTimes employees...
The only case that may be made for taxing energy sorces, is to create an artificially high price, and therefore scarcity, without bringing in new lower priced substitutes.
It is entirely feasible to fuel our automobile and transportation fleet here in the US with compressed natural gas, and never to refine another drop of petroleum into liquid motor fuel. But this alternative is not being offered, for perhaps a multitude of reasons. There is, first and foremost, the very real probability that a whole new code of regulations would be produced to either also tax this commodity in a manner comparable to that already laid on gasoline and Diesel fuel, or to make the extraction and distribution of natural gas prohibitively expensive.
As for the cost of conversion, and the wide distribution of the product, the economies of scale would make these both quite competitive in the current engineering sense, as the vast array of environmental controls that apply to gasoline and Diesel fuel, would not have to be nearly so stringent for compressed natural gas, and natural gas can be sent just about anywhere a pipeline can be laid. No trucks, no railroad tank cars, no massive “tank farms” for storage.
Great idea. Pass a law that makes gas $8-9/gal ONLY in counties that voted for Obama. Let them suffer.
Who is the “OUR” in all of this? Most Americans love the freedom they get from driving and I do not think they want to give up driving I know I don't. I am so sick of the NYT and the politicians and elite snobs leave us alone.
I wonder if people know they are paying mostly taxes per gallon of gas.
What a conniving, little liar. It's all about social policy. It's all about influencing our behavior.
And isn't it interesting that libs will admit that higher gas taxes will reduce gas consumption but won't ever let it slip that a higher minimum wage will reduce the number of minimum wage jobs?
This is TOTAL insanity.
They are so brash it isn’t even funny anymore.
We are in total tyranny.
I’d support a higher gas tax, if it were used for HIGHWAYS.
Because the alternative is tolling, with its associated CRONY CAPITALISM, as we all learned here in Texas, the hard way.
Using their logic we should raise a tax on newspapers.
Given their inefficiency as a conduit of information, we should raise the tax - thus encouraging the use of on-line resources, and keep raising the tax until people stop buying their news in paper form...
$4.25/gal regular here in Southern Kalifornia yesterday-cash price 10 cents less.
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