a bill to lower gasoline prices

[hfojvt]

I think this should get more co-sponsors, even though it is only 17 cents a gallon.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2480:

According to this bill, the Federal tax on gasoline will be suspended until the national average price of gas is below $3 a gallon for six months.

The Federal tax is 17 cents a gallon, so that would only be a 5% drop, but it is better than nothing.

I am not clear on how the revenue is made up to the Highway trust fund. It seems to be from general revenue, although an editorial I read says it could come from an increased tax on oil company profits. I really like that idea, although I am not sure if Oil companies get taxed more that they would not just pass that cost onto the consumer too. Except that the tax is figured after the gas is sold.

Seems to me like this would be a winner politically.

[MonkeyFunk]

1. We should be raising

taxes on gasoline, not lowering them.

[hfojvt]

2. It might encourage conservation

but it would also be very regressive, particularly for people in areas with no mass transit.

[MonkeyFunk]

3. Perhaps

but considering that our really fucked up foreign policy, AND man of our environmental problems are caused by our addiction to oil, we need to stop consuming so much of it.

Making gasoline cheaper is exactly the opposite of what we need to do.

[MichellesBFF]

4. Gouging

And if they lower the price by 17 cents, what's to keep the gas companies from raising their
prices by 17 cents?

[TheFarseer]

5. Yes, let's solve this problem with the Sean Hanitty approach

Gas goes up 17 cents between Wednesday and Thursday before holidays so I really don't see how this will help that much. The only answer in the short term is to conserve. Raise CAFE or something to encourage public transportation. Also, how are we going to pay for roads? I guess we can just borrow the money from China.

[taterguy]

6. A short-term fix that would have long-term consequences?

You're right that would be a political winner but I'd rather see something done to wean people from their addiction to gasoline so the prices would be based on standard supply / demand models. I guess I'm wacky that way.

[Selatius]

7. The biggest solution to this I can think of is massive reinvestment in mass transit systems.

We would have to look to Europe and Japan for models to build upon.