States Get In on the Calls for a Gas Tax Holiday »
Posted By TechnologyExpert 1 year, 1 month ago in Business & FinanceGov. Charlie Crist of Florida has been fighting to cut 10 cents from the state's gasoline tax for two weeks in July. Lawmakers in Missouri, New York and Texas have also proposed a summer break from state gas taxes, while candidates for governor in Indiana and North Carolina are sparring over relief ideas of their own.
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walden31 year, 1 month ago
This doesn't seem like a good idea to me. It will have a negative impact on state budgets. People may drive more and demand could go up. The profits still go to the oil companies.
Any shortfall in state budgets would then be met with higher property taxes. You can't push something down over there without it coming up over here.
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Bkumm1 year, 1 month ago
Tell that to the supply-siders sending us these "stimulus" checks and cutting taxes on the "wealthy" (quotes because I'm not sure we can agree on the definition of wealthy).
This is more of the same. People have seen that if they cry about things enough the govt will come up with a pacifier of some kind, usually cash. The country be damned, what happens NOW to ME is what's important, not what will be better for ME LATER.
Idiots.
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DropkickaLib1 year, 1 month ago
The gas tax is regressive in any case, and moving away from it would not be a bad idea. Similar in effect to the food tax. Consumption taxes on non-essential items would be more beneficial for lower income citizens.
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mesodude1 year, 1 month ago
Exactly... Let's siphon money from road and bridge repair budgets and use it to encourage people to drive more and pollute the environment. Unbelievable.
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slyboy21 year, 1 month ago
Agreed, this is a stupid idea. The plan will really only help businesses who purchase hundreds (or thousands) of gallons of gas a day but the average Joe might save 20-40 or so dollars a month. People can save that anyway by improving driving habits. This might have been a real treat when gas was oh 1.20, but now at 3.50 , gas will still squeeze people's budgets.
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nikkibabe1 year, 1 month ago
The price for a gallon of gas has gone up from $1.20 to $3.65 in 3 years. These opportunist politicians want to give us a 10 cent break.
I don't think they realize, any reduction of the price at this time will only increase big oil profits and ONLY increase purchases and drive up the price.
Idiots, Idiots, Idiots and Idiots.
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Bkumm1 year, 1 month ago
Idiots. What's worse is that when smart politicians like Senator Obama SAY it's idiocy his opponents hammer him for it.
Heck, most of the PEOPLE know it's idiocy. Quit dancing douchebags and FIX the problem.
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djrevelky1 year, 1 month ago
For once, we are in agreement...and I'm in agreement with Obama on this as well.
A temporary moritorium on the gas tax will see no benefit. The theory is that reduced gas prices will reduce shipping and supply cost for stores, restaurants, and small business and allow them to reduce their prices slightly. Of course, is every single item consumers buy has a meager price reduction of just 3 cents...then over the moriturium period that McCain and Clinton are both calling for that is a HUGE savings.
Only problem is that savings is temporary for businesses and by the time they see their savings, it will be too late to pass them onto the consumer so prices will not change.
Also, reducing the price of gas will more than likely increase demand. The problem is not (contrary to popular belief) that we are being gouged. The problem is that demand has increased while refining capacity has been stagnant since the 70's and production is falling.
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postaphis1 year, 1 month ago
I can see the siren call to lower these taxes for the summer season but just think what it will do when the taxes are reinstated. Sorta like pulling the plug on the ventilator. The state level may be easier to do but the federal....I can just see the tax reinstated at the end of the summer and just before the national elections...
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Cityslicker1 year, 1 month ago
Stupid idea .
Put a freeze on Oil Companies profits , make making a large profit not so inviting .
American People are to blame , the Oil Companies are making record breaking profits it is our fault , we make them charge to much , we force the large amounts of money on them , they would be fools not to accept it .
Notice the Commodities are driven by Foreign Investors , Al-Qadea , Taliban , etc ....
Enough is enough , it needs to stop .
It is out of control !
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bill29361 year, 1 month ago
How about we freeze them to say an 8% return on investment? Would that be okay for you?
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simonsez1 year, 1 month ago
Altering the price artificially prolongs the problem. High prices underwrite new innovation.
The best announcement they could make that they will open up drilling in Anwar, the gulf and other areas.
That would announce to the world we're serious about solving the problem.
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hyperbola1 year, 1 month ago
Those proposals are band-aids for a very short time at best.
Can you see any way of increasing oil and gas production by twenty-fold so that the rest of the world can flame it off at the same rate as Americans? If not, what do you propose - invade and occupy all oil-producing countries?
The ONLY real solution is to reduce our energy use by a factor of two every decade for the next 30-40 years. The first halving is not difficult - simply copy the measures already introduced by the europeans and japanese since the first oil shock in the 1970s.
As for the automobile, General Motors put us in a no-win deadly trap when they bought up and destroyed public transport systems in the 1930s. The sooner we start on alternatives to automobiles the better. (besides which, living in urban areas without automobiles is infinitely more interesting and healthy than the present situation).
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wtagg1 year, 1 month ago
Opening up new areas solves the problem how? If we have reached maximum refining capacity, how will more supply help? Have you investigated how long it would take to bring any of ANWR's into the system? If opened today, the projection is actual production would start about 9 years later, so approximately 2017. Analysts project it would lower the price of oil by about $1. ANWR is a drop in the bucket in relation to our consumption. Average US monthly production is about 150 million barrels. At peak production, ANWR represents about 26 million barrels per month or about 17% of our production. We us approximately 500 million barrels per month. ANWR, at peak production, represents 5% of our current use.
How about the idea that we remove ourselves from oil. I see that as solving the problem. Your solution is solving it by a small percentage, if you could refine it, which I don't think you can currently.
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Bkumm1 year, 1 month ago
I agree that high prices are a good thing, if and only if the people making the profits are putting the capital into innovations to eventually wean us off oil (as fuel) completely.
More production won't actually help much. There is enough oil on the market, but there is a bottleneck at the refineries. Further, the speculators are the ones driving up the market price. This is not a simple supply/demand economic equation.
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walden31 year, 1 month ago
Don't you think that the lack of competition inhibits new innovation? As long as shortages and reductions in supply benefit Big Oil there is no motivation to expand supply or innovate.
Strange enough I just saw a full-page ad in Newsweek by Big Oil trying to justify its enormous profits by saying that the average American owns mutual funds and these mutual funds invest in Big Oil so Big Oil's obscene profits benefit average Americans.
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nostalgia1 year, 1 month ago
That is what Congress has never been good at - combining short and long term strategies
What have they come up with so far - the corn/ethanol debacle
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Bkumm1 year, 1 month ago
Yes, they think. With the polling numbers. If it will get them (re)elected then they're for it, otherwise they're against it.
Idiocy.
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Teagen1 year, 1 month ago
What a joke. What's the matter with you guys. Any tax reduction is a good thing. But instead of playing with lowering the taxes and fees on gas, let's really review on how the taxes collected are spent.
You'd think a gas tax would be used for roads, wrong. More than half goes towards light rail, commuter rail, buses, bike paths, alternative energy solutions and the like. The one that annoys me the most are the rail and bike solutions. We have to fund them rather than actually having those who use them pay for them. Another example of bad moves with the fuel tax money is the bridge in Minnesota. Had they used the $1,000,000,000 that they spent on their train on the bridge, it wouldn't have fallen.
Use fuel tax money for the roads. No more pork projects that will solve problems that don't exist.
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cosmogenium1 year, 1 month ago
I disagree. When it comes to those using it funding it, hey, I pay property tax but have no children. I don't like paying it but I do like having good public schools in my community so kids can learn and grow like I did.
In my neck of the woods (upstate NY), the only mass transit available within the cities are buses. Since they have to move along with the traffic, they are less efficient than taking a car and driving by alternative routes. They are so slow that taking a bus means you only get one destination and return in a day's time.
We need light rail and bike lanes, and if we had them here they would get plenty of use. The benefits, including lower pollution and less congestion, would be for all; not just the users.
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slyboy21 year, 1 month ago
So does that make you the same person who yells at and tries to run over the people who bike in the road because they don't have a bike path to go on? Bike paths are cheap. About one mile of highway could fund about 50-100 miles of bike paths.
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