Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I'm Not a Special Interest

I take it back, I'm not one to lobby government to help me out at the expense of other citizens. Since I bought my car last year, I've put 30,000 miles on it. That's 82 miles a day, or about an hour and a half of driving. Despite my long commutes to work (45 mintes), theater (25 minutes) and church (20 minutes), I not only denounce consumer price bullying, but support a gas tax. Here's why:
After adjusting for inflation, Americans now spend some 35 cents less per gallon of gasoline than they did in 1950.
Don't worry there's more:
Increased gasoline prices would have spurred more rapid development of fuel-efficient automobiles and alternatively fueled vehicles such as electric cars.
and more:
Air pollution would have been reduced significantly
and it's not just for hippies:
The Federal treasury would have received more than $250 billion over the past 12 years [with a 30 cent tax]. These funds could have been used to reduce the deficit or to address other critical needs, such as rebuilding America's transportation infrastructure.
There also the reasons I've mentioned before of less behavior distortion and reduced traffic deaths.

5 comments:

  1. Dude, I've been sayin this for years. Tax that shit!

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  2. I think you're talking about this Kev:

    http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/1408

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  3. Oh dude, those and others like them have been around for a while. If I needed one I would totally get one, they're so cool!

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  4. Anonymous8:23 AM

    Better off with road tolls - then you can make it costly to be on the road at commute times. Gas tax doesn't distinguish between road use which impedes others (rush hour) and road use which is costless to others (sunday morning go to church). dave.s.

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  5. Great point Dave, but I wonder how much the administrative costs of those tolls are. Either way those costs are moving closer to zero all the time.

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You are the reason why I do not write privately. I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not.