You know, a note on the Kerry/Cheney $.50 gas tax hike

[zbdent]

Nobody ever mentions what Cheney's gas tax hike proposal would be ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION!

Every time you hear something about what it cost x years ago, they "adjust it for inflation".

[swag]

1. I may be the only one

But I'm totally in favor of an onerous gasoline tax.

[KuroKensaki]

2. You're not the only one.

We could use the income from the tax to do two things--

a) give people monetary incentives to chuck their SUV and get an eco-friendly high-MPG car or maybe even a HYBRID!!! If the government would pay for all but 4000 dollars of your new Prius hybrid, and you could get $6000 for your SUV in trade-in, and you'd save a bunch of money on gas (which is going to be expensive, tax or no), why wouldn't you? Not only that, but it would convince more car makers to put out high-MPG cars, to try to get a piece of the action.

Note: That's the exact opposite of the Bush energy plan. Which says we should give people economic incentives to buy Hummers.

b) invest in alternate energy production research. The research is out there, it's happening, it's just incredibly underfunded and undermanned. Give them what they need! We could kick the gas habit within a decade.

Edit: To all those who don't want to pay extra money on gas, think of this--if you get a car that doubles your gas mileage, with the help of incentives FROM the gas tax, you'll pay less after the gas tax than you do now.

[Ready4Change]

3. I am too.

I consider our dependance on foriegn oil the biggest threat to our nations security. Making gas more expensive would encourage people to burn less of it, and promote alternatives. If it were up to me, I'd add $1, and funnel the funds gained directly into alternative energy research.

Then we'd have less reason to be worried over Middle Eastern politics, and they'd have less leverage on us. Raise the price on oil? No problem. We'll just sell our alternative energy technologies to the rest of the world. All raising oil prices will do is drop more money into our pockets.

This seems such a no brainer to me.

[Journeyman]

4. Had the 50 cent tax been applied when it was proposed. . .

would it have had the effect of keeping prices lower today due to decreased consumption over the past years?

One of the intents of the tax was to discourage usage, yet no one seems to be factoring that in to today's emotional reaction to its supposed "impact."

I've seen plenty of arguments detailing how 50 cents on top of the current $2.00-plus price would be devastating, but nothing on the impact decreased demand over the past few years might have had.

[Ricdude]

5. We had a wake up call in the '70's...

...and we hit the snooze button.

I traded a V8 Bronco (11 mpg) for a New Beetle, with a diesel engine (45 mpg). It goes twice as far on half the fuel, and costs half as much to fill. Currently, about a third of it's fuel has been *renewable*, in the form of biodiesel. There's a rebate program in my state, so the soy biodiesel I buy only ends up costing $1.50/gallon.

And I can't claim a clean car (biodiesel is carbon neutral, and the emmissions are less than petrodiesel) credit on my tax return, despite being able to fuel my car entirely from renewable domestic sources...

[AntiCoup2K4]

6. Are the diesel Bugs hard to find?

I haven't done any real-time car shopping recently, but I noticed they don't have the diesel engine included on the "build a car" thing on their website.

The bus system here runs on biodiesel, so I'm assuming it's available somewhere