Trump to propose big hike in gas tax

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LTLFTcomposite

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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/14/trump-reportedly-endorses-25-cent-hike-in-gas-tax.html

And you guys thought he was bad :)

Make EVs Great Again!
 
I've been preaching for a $1/gallon tax for years and get road repairs totally off the budget :)
It's what they do in several?? European cities, let the people who use the roads and not grandma pay for road maintenance. Of course in this scenario grandma will still end up paying for the roads as the cost of all goods and services that are transported via the roads will increase and that cost will be passed onto the end consumer(and thats fair) but all in all nondrivers (or low mileage drivers) should end up paying less.
Do I believe this will get traction? HELL NO! it will never happen :(
BTW I'd don't really consider 25c/gallon a "hike" but they like to whip it up like it is. Heck gas prices have risen in my market 50c+/gallon in the last couple months and people aren't flocking to the streets, they shouldn't even notice 25c :D
 
jjeff said:
Of course in this scenario grandma will still end up paying for the roads as the cost of all goods and services that are transported via the roads will increase and that cost will be passed onto the end consumer(and thats fair) but all in all nondrivers (or low mileage drivers) D

Actually gas tax can be completely written off by business in most cases so it’s affect on prices is less than you might think.

Further if it can’t, it will drive specific types of business and transportation as being less favorable and cheap slow transport will become more favorable (like trains)

This will hurt places like Amazon and people who want fast tax payer subsidized semi shipments, but bulk deliveries will remain cost neutral.

This would force companies to move away from very wasteful shipping practices and charge people a realistic price if they want everything delivered to them, without planning a weekly shipping trip.

Local goods also become more price competitive, which is as it should be anyway.


As for my true opinion I have always believed the supply side of crude needs to pay a “windfall tax” whenever it’s price drops below a certain point and the tax should come and go with price, structured properly it would reduce market fluctuations and also drive some “hidden” tax from the very large tax except industrial side of crude.

Which is really what’s needed, even a very small supply side tax would provide vastly more energy revenue to roads than even a very large road tax hike and it might wake certain industries up into becoming more efficient to avoid the cost.
Industry makes most of the pollution and making them more efficient would effect pollution much more than any pollution controls on road going cars, this is simply due to sheer volume of supply side use and pollution
 
^ When you say "written off" you mean subtracted from profits, and since profits are reduced tax on those profits is reduced proportionally?
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
^ When you say "written off" you mean subtracted from profits, and since profits are reduced tax on those profits is reduced proportionally?

Yes but it’s more complex, gas cost including tax is written off gross.

So this means that a 50 cent /gal increase in fuel cost likely drives a 25 cent increase per gallon in price to the customer vetted against labor and all other costs.

The company that buys the shipped goods pays the 25 cents more shipping but again can write that off as well.

So in reality gas price increases in the grand scheme of things usually don’t drive much cost increase to the end product.
 
Everyone does. But this is the norm elsewhere and it works. It's also where it should be based on infrastructure cost. Goods become more expensive when freighted in like everything now. Congestion charges would be welcome in the city centres for vehicles that are too inefficient.

It would personally effect me quite a bit. I travel a lot and have lots of non BEV vehicles. But it's the right thing to do.
 
LCR said:
Do any of you all work in any industry that requires movement of goods? :roll:

Yes, but freight to our place can come directly to our dock by rail or semi.

Semi is cheaper so we don’t get anything by rail, (But we ship out by rail often)
guess what happens if rail is cheaper?
 
And nearly 100% of the rails in this country are privately owned. Rail doesn't go to 98% of the places roads do. so, let me know how prices for 98% of things in life go when gas costs $8/gal
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
One thing for sure, EV enthusiasts would do well not to talk about it. Just sit there and keep quiet.

Certainly here is one of the few places that's safe for cheering a gas tax increase. Elsewhere might be safe to cheering the infrastructure part of it, but don't then say "oops, and thanks for paying for it for us EVers" :oops:

First saving the tax credit and now the gas tax. And I thought Trump would only be good for EVs by giving CC denial a bad name :D .
 
I would hope it wouldn't be that large of an increase on diesel. That is how goods move and would be rather inflationary. Perhaps 25c on gas and 10c increase on diesel would be a better adjustment.

The fact this hasn't been adjusted in 25 years is astonishing. It should gradually go up over time, not just to account for inflation, but to also proactively drive more efficiency. The gas taxes in Europe are a prime reason they have much smaller, more efficient cars there. This is a direction we need to move in. But it should be gradual as you don't really want to harshly penalize those who already have an inefficient car.
 
The social cost of CO2 is likely in the $50 to $100/ton range. 1 gallon of gas when burned makes about 20 pounds of CO2, and for diesel it's about 22 pounds. So the appropriate portion of the gas tax for CO2 is $0.50 to $1.00/gallon, similar for diesel.

Cheers, Wayne
 
DarthPuppy said:
I would hope it wouldn't be that large of an increase on diesel. That is how goods move and would be rather inflationary. Perhaps 25c on gas and 10c increase on diesel would be a better adjustment.

The fact this hasn't been adjusted in 25 years is astonishing. It should gradually go up over time, not just to account for inflation, but to also proactively drive more efficiency. The gas taxes in Europe are a prime reason they have much smaller, more efficient cars there. This is a direction we need to move in. But it should be gradual as you don't really want to harshly penalize those who already have an inefficient car.

But that is not how we do it! We wait until years after "the very last second" so we can appropriately overreact.

Realize a slow steady increase in cost would not raise any attention and only result in the slow erosion of Big Oil profits?

As we all know; That is simply not an option we have access to! Only a huge change will generate the opposition Big Oil desires.


FYI; If you think the Oil Industry is the only player in this game, you should check into the Light Rail Debacle in Seattle. Take your time, we still got about 30 years to go.
 
Via ABG:
Trump signals he's open to mileage tax to pay for infrastructure fixes
Another idea: Raise the federal gas tax for first time in decades
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/02/21/trump-mileage-tax-infrastructure/

WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday praised an experimental program in Oregon that charges a mileage tax to volunteer drivers, adding to signals that President Donald Trump is open to finding new revenue sources to pay for his proposed infrastructure program.
Many of Trump's fellow Republicans, however, dislike the idea of a transportation tax as it would go against the party's push to lower taxes and could hit Republican-leaning rural areas harder than cities.

In the annual Economic Report of the President, the White House described Oregon — a Democratic-leaning state where environmental issues are a priority for many voters — as a "pioneer" in transportation funding and highlighted its funding initiative, which began in 2015. Volunteers are charged a fee of 1.7 cents for each mile driven on state roads — at that rate, someone who drove 10,000 miles in a year would pay $170. In return, however, drivers get rebates for state fuel taxes. As of the end of 2016, only about 700 people were participating in the pilot program, which is intended to gather data and generate consumer feedback.

"The program offers tangible evidence that a tax on vehicle miles traveled is a promising alternative to relying on fuel taxes," the report said. Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, described Oregon's mileage tax as "innovative" in a conference call with reporters and made clear the Trump administration was open to looking at ways to raise revenue for infrastructure projects. . . .
 
Gas tax is about 99% efficient at getting money into state coffers.

All fee based programs will go through the DMV or an as yet unknown agency.

The DMV looses 50% of every dollar they collect to overhead.

It is unlikely a mileage based federal fee would do any better, further depending on your area up to about 2% of cars are on the road illegally br it invalid plates, invalid license or invalid insurance and believe it or not vehicle costs vrs local income drive what that number is.

A mileage based system will be ripe for fraud and likely have a lot of folks do it on principal.

Gas tax on the other hand is hard but not impossible to bypass, farm trucks are caught now and again
 
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