Let’s raise gas taxes
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, it’s fallen by 40 percent since then.
Politicians of both parties understandably fear that raising the gas tax would enrage voters. It certainly wouldn’t make lives easier for struggling families. But the gasoline tax is a tool of energy and transportation policy, not social policy, like the minimum wage…
Other industrialized democracies have accepted much higher gas taxes as a price for roads and bridges and now depend on the revenue. In fact, Germany’s gas tax is 18 times higher than the United States’ (and seven times more if the average state gas tax is included). The federal gasoline tax contributed about $25 billion in revenues in 2009.
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None of those things is a goal of mine and it shouldn’t be a goal of the Federal government’s either. Enough social engineering. When a viable gasoline alternative is found, someone will market it and make a fortune off of it. In the meantime, Ms. “I take a taxi because I live in NYC and can’t find a place to park a car anyway, so what do I care about gas prices”, take your idea and get marooned on a remote island in one of our beautiful seven seas.
totherightofthem on February 22, 2013 at 3:10 PM
And folks laugh at people who buy gold.
rogerb on February 22, 2013 at 3:11 PM
No sh-t, Sherlock. You think with the average price nationwide hovering around 4 bucks a gallon in the middle of February that raising the gas tax might put a dent in everyone’s budget which is already stretched thin enough as it is?
I do hope someone in Congress proposes this though. The reaction from the public will be priceless.
Doughboy on February 22, 2013 at 3:13 PM
How about we raise the taxes of Valerie, and all of the registered Democrats, since they are so concerned with air pollution?
LincolntheHun on February 22, 2013 at 3:14 PM
Square that circle. Same person, same article.
rogerb on February 22, 2013 at 3:14 PM
Believe it or not in Washington State the Democrat fools (but I repeat myself) want to do just that:
Gas, car-tab taxes drive House Dems’ transportation plan
Drained Brain on February 22, 2013 at 3:15 PM
Only liberals think it’s their duty to make sure I travel less and feel it’s their right to tax the hell out of me to get their way. Mind your own f@#%! business.
tyketto on February 22, 2013 at 3:16 PM
Sure I’ll support raising gas taxes, in exchange for opening the coasts and ANWAR for drilling. And building more refineries.
Otherwise, get lost.
rbj on February 22, 2013 at 3:16 PM
Any bets that she doesn’t even drive? Why oh why do they always bring up European countries and their gas taxes? It’s not like things are exactly rosey over there.
major dad on February 22, 2013 at 3:16 PM
Jeebus but these people are arrogant and stupid. Let’s compare the size of Germany (everyone’s favorite European comparable) to the U.S. Germany is 137,847 square miles in size. The continental U.S. is 2,959,064.44 in size. The total size is closer to 3.8 million square miles. We have cities in the U. S. that are about 1/10 of the total of Germany’s continental footprint. Take Yakutat Alaska, for example. It’s over 9,000 square miles in size. The largest German city, by contrast is a little over 344 square miles in size. Germans don’t drive as much as we do. Period.
totherightofthem on February 22, 2013 at 3:19 PM
Well I guess all those higher gas taxes won’t have any input on groceries etc for those hauling them to the stores? Guess all those higher taxes won’t have any input on farmers/ranchers on their/our cost?
These people are so stupid they do not need to be in the gene pool!
L
letget on February 22, 2013 at 3:20 PM
Their gas prices make it nearly impossible to turn a profit when your job requires a lot of travel. My band toured Europe in 2010, the cost of gas and tolls ate any profit we made off show guarantees and merchandise sales. I see that happening here if these pos liberals get their way.
jawkneemusic on February 22, 2013 at 3:21 PM
What a dumb cow Valerie is.
May her lettuce quadruple in price and may she suffocate on it.
Schadenfreude on February 22, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Social engineering anyone? Followed by……
What the what?
IOW, we’ll decide what’s best for you and how much misery you can undure.
Europe is awesome. Broke, but awesome.
antipc on February 22, 2013 at 3:25 PM
And Obama is our beloved leader, not a politician like Boehner.
Fenris on February 22, 2013 at 3:26 PM
Blow it out your tailpipe!
portlandon on February 22, 2013 at 3:26 PM
Square that circle. Same person, same article.
rogerb on February 22, 2013 at 3:14 PM
Add this:
Yet, as you showed above, she wants to use the gas tax to promote her preferred social policy.
And this, at the end:
Because letting the people most affected keep their own money isn’t as important as socially engineering them to do what you want while letting them know you’re doing something to help them “offset” what you’ve done to them. You can’t tell them “look what I’ve done for you, vote for me” if you haven’t manufactured a crisis from which to save them.
Jeff Weimer on February 22, 2013 at 3:29 PM
My goal is to get you busy bodies out of our lives and pockets.
Why don’t you nuts move to Europe?
darwin on February 22, 2013 at 3:31 PM
Ding, ding, ding…we have a winner!:)
Clink on February 22, 2013 at 3:31 PM
Talk about compartmentalized thinking. If her goal is change behaviors, doesn’t that qualify as social policy?
Vera71 on February 22, 2013 at 3:32 PM
Maybe if this clown had to work for a living she’d see things differently.
Maybe if she wasn’t spoon fed socialist propaganda during her school years she’d still be able to discern fantasy hogwash from reality.
Maybe she could spend five minutes on the interent and discover global warming is a massive scam.
Maybe she’s just plain nuts.
darwin on February 22, 2013 at 3:35 PM
Someone take her keyboard away before she hurts herself.
antipc on February 22, 2013 at 3:37 PM
Lets raise public transportation ticket prices, SIGNIFICANTLY! Say, just to where they cover COST?
astonerii on February 22, 2013 at 3:37 PM
Listen carefully, you ditz. I’ll talk slow.
My goal is to simply make my one-hour-each-way commute* in one piece, and have it cost as little as possible. Raising gas taxes to make moron tree-huggers like you feel better will not help me meet that goal.
(That’s sharing an interstate highway with truckers who think they’re driving Ferraris, and brain-dead transplants from New York who simply don’t know what to do with all that wide open highway.)
CurtZHP on February 22, 2013 at 3:42 PM
This, everyone, is the U.N.’s Agenda 21 being proselytized so the masses will accept it. Herd us all into the cities so we can live on top of each and won’t need transportation beyond a couple of blocks on a bus or transit system and the ruling class gets to be landed gentry again and the proles can be controlled because they’re all in one place. Unarmed, of course. Fabulous. Count me out.
totherightofthem on February 22, 2013 at 3:42 PM
Raising gas taxes would increase the cost of EVERYTHING … hurting the low income the most.
These people are nuts.
darwin on February 22, 2013 at 3:47 PM
Let’s raise taxes on Hollywood instead.
darwin on February 22, 2013 at 3:48 PM
I am so sick and tired of these so-called “scientists”.
darwin on February 22, 2013 at 3:51 PM
Let’s lower taxes on ropes and lamp posts.
SirGawain on February 22, 2013 at 3:54 PM
lol, the fact that this author’s last name is “Karplus” makes this even funnier.
Her bio:
http://globalchange.mit.edu/about/our-people/personnel/all_id/276
Shockingly, she went to Yale (with a minor in Political Science) so she’s definitely been indoctrinated correctly!
Del Dolemonte on February 22, 2013 at 3:55 PM
A prominent member of the House of Lords objected to the creation of British Rail passenger service because it would, “allow the common people to move about any time they please.”
It seems divine right and lordly privilege still rules some people’s minds.
Random Numbers (Brian Epps) on February 22, 2013 at 3:58 PM
I love the environmental libtards, their goals result in things that go against pretty much everything other liberals stand for. Global pollution standards? Hurts the poorest countries the most. Increase the gas tax? Increases the low and middle classes the most. As annoying as they are, I hope the treehuggers keep spouting off like this, they’ll eventually split the left.
Also as someone who commutes 100 miles round trip every day, you can probably guess how I feel about this idea in general.
LukeinNE on February 22, 2013 at 3:58 PM
It’s not.
joekenha on February 22, 2013 at 3:59 PM
Mendacious, lying, fraudulent, dissembling, reality-challenged nonsense.
In the first paragraph quoted she insists “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 …”
Right there is your damned social policy!
Ass.
chimney sweep on February 22, 2013 at 4:03 PM
its actually a really good idea even if not for the author’s reasons. A european tax on gas would encourage more CNG cars and america is the saudia arabia of natty gas.
snoopicus on February 22, 2013 at 4:07 PM
May be your goal, it sure isn’t my goal. Take that more efficient fuel efficient vehicle crap and blow it out your tail pipe.
/gads I’m tired of these liberal nanny-staters trying to tell the rest of us what is good for us. Let them go and live in Europe if it is all so great over there. Europe has a population collapse problem, I’m sure they’d be happy to have more people. Let those of us who love freedom continue to live in this country and those who want to be ruled live in Europe or some other statist country.
Sad thing is, libs aren’t that way; it’s not that they just want to be ruled, they can’t stand the thought that someone, somewhere in the world is actually living in freedom and free from the interference of government. Makes them crazy just thinking about it.
AZfederalist on February 22, 2013 at 4:08 PM
plus the stuff is cheaper than gas
snoopicus on February 22, 2013 at 4:10 PM
Valerie is an evil little want to be dictator; her Doctoral thesis is all about forcing a reduction in driving of gas powered cars by incrementalism
http://globalchange.mit.edu/research/publications/2164
LincolntheHun on February 22, 2013 at 4:10 PM
read the abstract, please dont misunderstand my support for natural gas. i live in texas
snoopicus on February 22, 2013 at 4:12 PM
Wow, where can I get a PhD like that? Junk science, junk degrees. She doesn’t have a PhD in engineering where she actually developed some new science or technology, she has one in social engineering where her innovation was figuring out how to expand the power of government over the people while reducing individual freedoms.
AZfederalist on February 22, 2013 at 4:12 PM
Hear Hear! I might add “actually living HAPPILY in freedom” because that maddens them as well, but you’ve pretty well nailed it.
Drained Brain on February 22, 2013 at 4:13 PM
But if or goal in to reduce the freedom of Americans gas prices need to be even higher
tmitsss on February 22, 2013 at 4:14 PM
Dunce
A Balrog of Morgoth on February 22, 2013 at 4:15 PM
Dude i just said it bc i live on the barnett shale and i think natty is a good alternative to gasoline
snoopicus on February 22, 2013 at 4:17 PM
As you requested,
sounds like incrementalism to me.
Next the cry will be “for the children!”
LincolntheHun on February 22, 2013 at 4:18 PM
oh and that energy production here as opposed to buying it from your boy hugo chavez was a good idea
snoopicus on February 22, 2013 at 4:18 PM
or propping up saudi arabia but hey lets keep doing it your way. Instead of good jobs here lets make our enemies rich
snoopicus on February 22, 2013 at 4:19 PM
.
Natural gas is a great alternative, but we are not dealing with people who want to reduce pollution, we are dealing with people who want POWER. They want to dictate how you run your life. For example since we have been using Natural gas the amount of air pollution in America has gone down, have you heard the Greens applauding? Nope.
LincolntheHun on February 22, 2013 at 4:30 PM
In her case, the PhD stands for “Piled High and Deep.”
As for “BS”, any farmer can tell you what that means…
Del Dolemonte on February 22, 2013 at 5:03 PM
About the author of this dreck:
White? Check.
B.A. from Ivy League (Yale)? Check.
Masters from Ivy League (MIT) Check.
Ph.D. from Ivy League (MIT) Check.
Liberal “Progressive”? Check.
Will benefit financially from liberal progressive bureaucratic regimes like the one we are “enjoying” currently? Check.
Funded (PAID) through U.S. Government Funding research grants that specifically grew under liberal President Obama’s administration? Check.
Most likely an advocate for urban living and public transportation versus “suburbanites in their cars”? Check
Lives in a bubble of like-minded peers in academia? Check.
Never “worked” a day in her life? Check.
Doesn’t know one “working” class person personally? Check.
If pressed, though, would state she was all for the “working and middle class” folks and adamantly against the rich 1%? Check.
Can personally afford her proposed raising of the gasoline tax since she makes at the least, a six-figure income? Check.
Doesn’t care one whit about the folks who will suffer financially from her proposal? Check.
What gets to me the most? The sociopathic way she so breezily proposes this asinine idea with no regard to the actual, real life consequences of it.
Her sick, twisted ideas ferment in that progressive, liberal bubble in the rich, white “smart” world she lives in that is so outside and alien to the rest of the citizenry.
The thing is that she knows her proposal will cause pain. Real distress and suffering upon real people. But she thinks the ends justify her lofty ideas just like every progressive (and dare I say Communist) before her.
Her ideas are moldy, wretched and as old as Five Year Plans of yore.
There are millions of us watching and reading these plans and proposals of her and her ilk and we are ascendent. We are prepared to do battle against them and we are more independent than they will ever hope or be prepared to be.
Molon Labe
Opposite Day on February 22, 2013 at 5:40 PM
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