GM CEO calls for $1 gas tax hike
 

Of course if you go onto the whole story, he is saying a gas tax increase is better for the industry than the crazy fuel economy standards D.C. is pushing.

Obama Administration appointee calls for higher energy taxes.

Not really news.

He's right, the best way to influence energy behavior in a plain old tax. Then the market will decide what cars they want.

Thats dumb. How about if we just let the market determine that ACTUAL price of things?

Don't give grants for research. Stop sending our troops all over hell and creation to protect oil wells, oil companies have enough profits to hire Blackwater (now Xe) to go kill people.

Hell, in my opinion, GM doesn't have much room to talk. That crappy company should have gone the way of the dodo years ago and made room for some American car companies that actually had some innovative ideas. They spent a gazillion dollars lobbying congress to give a tax credit for buying SUVS instead of spending that money on R&D. Now they are boo hooing like this is the first time in the history of mankind that we've been hit by rising fuel prices.

Well, and it will actually continue to fund roads that cars drive on. Unless we're going to pay for transportation infrastructure out of the general fund something has to be done. And increasing the gas tax has some of the benefits of CAFE standards while paying for the roads we drive on.

Are you arguing that infrastructure spending should all be market based? How would that work?

I don't believe he said to not tax to pay for projects. He said not to tax with the intent of artificially dictating prices.

So you missed that article mentioning that taxes are lower now than under the Reagan Administration huh?

Might help if you actually link to the article you are talking about.

Woe be it for simple Google searches with common words to get in the way.

PolitiFact | Barack Obama says taxes are lower today than under Reagan, Eisenhower

So you missed the part of my post that said "energy taxes."

If you are making a specific point and allude to an article, it's best to have the article linked at that time.

Maybe we can just do away with the billions of dollars worth of tax breaks that the oil companies get, and allow them to raise their prices to compensate in stead. Adding a tax to gas, while lessening the tax burden on the oil companies is a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

__Jason

I'm in favor of removing the (now mostly useless) subsidies, but it won't change the price of gas. If we want people to use less, we should just tax it plain and simple. Use some of the money to subsidize the rural population that needs to drive a lot, and put some into intra-metro public transit.

I agree with most of your post but let me expand a bit. We not only spend huge amounts of money and lives to keep our cars and industry supplied but also give the rest of the oil consuming world almost a free ride. We have been keeping the real cost of oil hidden for decades and the result is to encourage over use and reliance on a limited resource. If the world paid the real cost for oil the innovation and research would be going full throttle. As it is some new products cannot compete because the subsidised cost of oil is lower than the real cost of alternatives.

We cannot have an example of anti free market better than this. We have shoved this under the rug for over three decades and continue doing it today. We subsidise our competition with our own money and soldiers lives.

The burden is on you to supply the source you are referencing.

I agree. I am all for removing many of the energy subsidies: oil, ethanol, etc.

Sure. But I'm way too busy trying to find an appropriate Rolleyes emoticon for situations just like this one...

http://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/fo...s/thumbsup.gifhttp://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/fo...s/thumbsup.gifhttp://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/fo...s/thumbsup.gif

Sec of Defence Gates pretty much dittoed this in his farewell speech. He singled out NATO for special notice. The US taxpayer and military pay about 85% in dollar cost and lives. http://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/fo...milies/mad.png