Category

Netzero gas tax

• 08.08.09
  Can I trade my congressman for a clunker?
  Netzero gas tax, Stimulus spending (0)

  It's about time for us to get a new car to replace our one-and-only car, a venerable 1998 Toyota Corolla. But thanks to idiot politicians and their cash-for-clunkers program, now is a bad time to buy. Not only do we not get in on a cash-for-a-clunker deal, but we have to pay extra taxes so other people can trade in their clunkers. Not only that, but the people who ARE trading their clunkers in are causing shortages of new cars. It isn't that we want a new car. We want a low-mileage used ...
  
  
• 07.31.09
  Twice as much
  Netzero gas tax (0)

  I wish I had a 15MPG clunker to trade in for a new 30MPG car. Then instead of driving 10,000 miles this year I could buy twice as much foreign oil and get in 20,000 miles -- maybe afford to move farther away from work and contribute to urban sprawl. But even if I didn't get to do that, at least I was able to contribute some of my tax dollars to help other people burn through foreign oil in better style. That method works with beer, too, as Tom McMahon points out in the ...
  
  
• 03.22.09
  Carbon emissions power the government
  Netzero gas tax (0)

  Alex Harrowell at A Fistful of Euros provided me with some new examples of why cap-and-trade systems are a really bad idea. I'm not sure he's against cap-and-trade like I am, but he makes the point that a carbon tax is a lot simpler to enforce, and a lot less prone to political influence trading. For one thing, with a carbon tax there are a lot fewer entities to keep track of: Further, how many SKUs (Stock-Keeping Units - individual products) does the Chinese export sector produce? It’s got to be in the tens of thousands at the ...
  
  
• 01.26.09
  Cars don’t guzzle gas. People do.
  Netzero gas tax (0)

  Speed Gibson points out that cars don't guzzle gas, people do. That's a good argument for a netzero gas tax vs CAFE standards. Speed says "The market regulates all this just fine, or would if the government would stop interfering." I don't completely go along with that, as it doesn't take care of regulating the external costs of fossil fuel consumption. But a netzero tax would harness market forces to do the parts that markets do best.
  
  
• 12.29.08
  Net-zero gas tax
  Energy policy, Netzero gas tax, Tax policy (0)

  For years -- maybe even decades -- I've been talking up the idea of a net-zero gas tax. Except I didn't know it should be called "net-zero" until I read Charles Krauthammer's article in the January 5 issue of The Weekly Standard. And it hasn't been until recently that I've decided in my own mind that the countervailing tax reduction should definitely be in the FICA tax. For most of these years it has been like talking to a brick wall. LeftLiberals don't like the idea, because for the most part they don't really ...