Posted on 01/09/2015 8:10:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind
For 32 years I’ve been advocating a major tax on petroleum. I’ve got as much chance this time around as did Don Quixote with windmills. But I shall tilt my lance once more.
The only time you can even think of proposing a gas-tax increase is when oil prices are at rock bottom. When I last suggested the idea six years ago, oil was selling at $40 a barrel. It eventually rose back to $110. It’s now around $48. Correspondingly, the price at the pump has fallen in the last three months by more than a dollar to about $2.20 per gallon.
As a result, some in Congress are talking about a ten- or 20-cent hike in the federal tax to use for infrastructure spending. Right idea, wrong policy. The hike should not be 10 cents but $1. And the proceeds should not be spent by, or even entrusted to, the government. They should be immediately and entirely returned to the consumer by means of a cut in the Social Security tax.
The average American buys about twelve gallons of gas a week. Washington would be soaking him for $12 in extra taxes. Washington should therefore simultaneously reduce everyone’s FICA tax by $12 a week. Thus the average driver is left harmless. He receives a $12 per week FICA bonus that he can spend on gasoline if he wants — or anything else. If he chooses to drive less, it puts money in his pocket. (The unemployed would have the $12 added to their unemployment insurance; the elderly, added to their Social Security check.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Beltway Disease..........no known cure.
Taxation without representation. Gas tax is for gas consumer roads infrastructure, pure and simple. SS is not part of that.
The Establishment has spoken.
If it goes into effect, it will be by the folks most people voted for.
If it goes into effect, it will be by the folks most people voted for.
Conservatives have no party representation, currently.
The two parties are two sides of the same coin playing “good cop, bad cop” with us.
That is a great Marxist idea.
Pray America is waking
> The only time you can even think of proposing a gas-tax increase is when oil prices are at rock bottom.
Don’t Gruber us. The gas tax is per gallon, not per dollar. Whether “oil prices are at rock bottom” has nothing to do with it.
So, the proposal is to pump money into a bankrupt system while reducing the direct tax which allegedly funds it....brilliant stoke of ignorance.
Meanwhile, who pays the gas tax, how about those who actually work, go to work, or live outside the inner city mass transit disasters that have been funded, in part, by very tax they want to increase because there is not enough money in the pot now.
Obama is willing to meet you halfway.
1 dollar per gallon tax increase one gasoline.
No offsetting cut in Social Security tax.
Hey. What are you complaining about. HE MET YOU HALFWAY!
Revenue-neutral is not really neutral at all.
No more Taxes, we are Taxed Enough Already!
Federal Gas taxes may be, but Georgia has gasoline tax that is keyed to the price of gas.
Dr. Krauthammer is a pretty sharp guy. Hence, it astounds me that he misses the point that taxes are a game for politicians to buy votes and reward their friends. Adding a gas tax will be permanent. Reducing other taxes will be temporary and will never offset the gas tax hike.
I support the idea of a VAT because it rewards frugality. However, we all know that a VAT would not replace income taxes. It would just be more money for the politicians.
Let’s see... My recent diesel fuel purchase netted the gov. this week $480.40 on 880 gals. Don’t get me started about 2290 Federal Highway use taxes, and the IFTA taxes and the thousands we pay in license fees, etc. If they actually used the monies collected for Highway use instead of pet projects like bike paths, our roads would be smooth as a baby’s but.
Here is an alternative: make the gas tax *regressive*.
The current United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. State taxes vary, see link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States#State_taxes
So say, if gasoline only costs a dollar, the gas taxes are 40 cents on that dollar.
But if the price of gasoline goes up to two dollars a gallon, the *regressive* gasoline taxes drop to 20 cents on the dollar.
If the price of gasoline goes up to three dollars a gallon, the *regressive* gasoline taxes drop to 10 cents.
And at four dollars a gallon, there are NO federal or state gasoline taxes.
Doing it this way will guarantee that politicians continue to strive to keep the price of gasoline and diesel as low as possible.
Krauthammer is a good Republican like the Republicans of the 50s and 60s who saw themselves as the tax collectors for Democrat spending.
This would royally screw those in fly-over country that drive longer distances to work and everything else. 12 gal of gas don’t go far when you are forced to drive a 4x4 to get through the ice/snow, and have to drive 300+ miles a week.
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