Gas prices

Take taxes off of the price of gas, and most people will still complain about gas prices. $3 per gallon! By golly, that's still 50 times as expensive as when paps was a kid, and back then every 20 gallons got you 20 minutes with the lot lizard.

I bet if gasoline was free, people would complain that they're not getting paid to fill up.

OK Three cheers for SC. We have some of the lowest gas taxes in the country. And we had the cheapest cigarette taxes until we raised them last year.

benzbaron wrote: I always remember a teacher I had pointing out people will spend 8$ on a gallon of filtered water but don't want to spend over 2$ a gallon for gas which has to be extracted, refined, and delivered a hundred or more miles. Honestly why would you sell your gas for 4$ a gallon in the US if you could sell it in Europe for 8$? Its basic economics which determine the price and if gas is sold in a futures market and speculation inflates the price so be it. If the market futures point towards higher prices producers will leave the oil in the ground, if the futures point towards falling prices oil will be extracted now.

Big part of the price of gas in Europe is that taxes that pay for healthcare and infrastructure. Not an apples to apples comparison.

fast_eddie_72 wrote:

oldsaw wrote: In reply to mguar: Which Republicans are seriously proposing eliminating gas taxes, let alone all taxes? Or, are you just trolling again?

He may be over-stating things a bit, but every Republican candidate is bemoaning the debt *and* proposing further tax *cuts*. It does make one wonder.

Do we really have to go over how lowering taxes to the gov't increases revenue? (Yes, the debt went up under Reagan because they wouldn't quit spending, but revenues doubled in 8 years).

Or look at the capital gains tax and what it's increases/decreases have done to federal revenue.

Obama has even admitted raising it will lower revenues, but it's about being "fair."

z31maniac wrote: Do we really have to go over how lowering taxes to the gov't increases revenue? (Yes, the debt went up under Reagan because they wouldn't quit spending, but revenues doubled in 8 years).

Uh boy. Okay. Then let's cut them to zero and all our problems will be solved!

Top marginal rate when Reagan took office?

Anyone? Anyone?

Top marginal rate now?

Anyone? Anyone?

Did revenue go up after the "Bush tax cuts"? Even the Republican candidates aren't saying tax cuts pay for themselves anymore. Now they're saying that they stimulate the economy- they had to change their tune because the facts no longer bear out their agenda.

You can "go over it" as many times as you like. Revenues were higher under Clinton. Even Reagan's Laffer Curve said it only works to a point. But that's the problem, no one thinks about it anymore. You drank the Kool-Aid back in the 80s and can't imagine that you can only lower taxes so far before revenue goes down.

Here- look at this:

I picked that one because it tells two stories. First- look at the spending (cause I know that's what you want to look at first). Yup! There it is- way up! That's bad. I don't argue that.

Ah, but look at revenue. How did that happen? We lowered taxes! Yup- we lowered taxes and revenue not only went down, it spiraled down out of control. I'm so tired of people who won't look at both sides of the equation. Yes, we need to cut spending- what was that huge spike in spending, anyhow? We need to end that. We're in the process of doing so. But we also have to raise taxes. Neither alone will get us out of the hole. We don't have to wonder how we got here, we can look at it and see. We brought in less money in the form of taxes and we spent a ton more. That gap between the two lines getting bigger and bigger is the problem. We need to make that gap smaller by working on both sides.

The ironic part is the people who did both are now the ones running around telling the President "you're doing it wrong!" That would hold more watter if any of them had mentioned the debt when they had the White House and both houses of Congress. And we're supposed to elect them again to fix it? Hell, we're just starting to claw out of their recession!

Capt Slow wrote: Maybe if the U.S. and Israel stopped rattling the saber with Iran so much, the speculators would stop artificially running up the cost of oil because of concerns about "regional stability".

Not hardly. They would just find another reason. Their greed is not going to go away just because the "easy" reason is gone.

Here, this says it better than I could. But saying pretty much the same thing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/06/do_tax_cuts_ever_increase_government_revenues.html

This is a collection of quotes, almost certainly for political purposes, but none the less, mostly conservative economists. If you're interested in hearing what they have to say, take a look. I suspect you're not, though.

http://swordscrossed.org/node/1671

I don't know why gas prices are so high. All I know is it must be Joe Bush's fault. His daddy was an "oil man" you know.

mguar is right for once, we could both sit here and play the my "Google link is more correct than your Google link" game, but neither of us is going to change the others mind.

I just want to see the fairtax enacted.

www.fairtax.org

z31maniac wrote: I just want to see the fairtax enacted. www.fairtax.org

As much as I and a whole lot of other people want that passed into law, it will NEVER happen. In one word: POWER. Passing it renders Congress/government powerless to control YOUR life.

I realize that, it's too bad more Americans have become so apathetic with the process............or we might be able to.

all you have to do is keep the discussion alive and its possible.

And all you have to do with that is just occassionally strike up a conversation:

"If you could chose to pay %23 imbedded sales tax on everything you buy, but keep your entire paycheck, would you?"

Most times i start this discussion, they quickly zero in on the first advantage: you'd only pay taxes when you actually buy something. So just keep the murmurs alive, dont walk away from the discussion. ^_^

But more accurate is 23% in additon to state/local taxes.

So in places like Tulsa, you're actually approaching a 32% sales tax.

Hell, even they just dropped the corporate income tax rate to 0%...................think of what that would do for our business climate. It just depresses me when people think "corporations" actually pay taxes.

In reply to z31maniac:

but you're comparing apples to oranges by trying to reference all the taxes. Thats outside the scope of the discussion on the Fairtax. ;p

As far as corporate income tax... anyone who's ever run a business usually understands that tax costs end up in the consumer's lap, or the business sinks to competition (which already passed the tax cost to their customers.)

again, a nonsense statistic because of how 'other' countries count what an infant is and then report that.

mguar wrote:

poopshovel wrote: I don't know why gas prices are so high. All I know is it must be Joe Bush's fault. His daddy was an "oil man" you know.

I don't know who Joe Bush is . Jeb Bush? he was the governor of Florida how can he affect things? George jr. is on his ranch drinking so I don't understand how he can affect things.. Sr. is pretty well retired. Aren't there some pro sports athletes named Bush? but how could they affect prices? How about a little help here?

I was being sarcastic. And I was making fun of people who find the name "George" difficult to pronounce. Calm down.

mguar wrote: Let me surprise you.. That sounds great. Shocked? remember I'm a liberal..... But that's a flat tax of sorts.. as long as there are absolutely no exemptions.. None.. Some Big shot pays a tax on a ride on the corporate jet to play golf with his buddies Or visit the hunting lodge etc..

Thats the only way it CAN work; thats is if there's no exceptions. Otherwise, it kinda hampers the idea of it being fair. A tax on all new goods, Gucci bags, milk, medicine, New Mercedes, everything without exception.

If it's done in conjunction with some sort of adjustment for those who have very little.. I've been volunteering to work with some real handicapped people.. A 56 year old woman for example who is paralyzed from the neck down because some doctor screwed up on a spinal tap.. This is a woman who has a masters degree, raised two great kids and with other issues that developed she has only a few years left to live.. Her little money goes towards her handicapped son and the pets she has to keep her company.. add 23% tax to that and she has to put one of them to sleep..

There's 2 quick problems to address with the last thought here:

1: the Fairtax law is written that the current goverment body that sets poverty level of income would shift immediately into calculating poverty level of spending required monthly. Then, based on that figure, all taxpayers would received a (p)rebate for the taxes on that poverty level of spending (making it somewhat progressive). So the 56 year old would never have to pay taxes on the basic necessities, as defined by the poverty statistic.

2: The 23% tax is embedded, and its meant to replace existing embedded taxes that come from the income tax system.

Just like how in most states, the price of gasoline per gallon does NOT list seperately all of the taxes on that gasoline, because the tax is embedded.

In reply to mguar:

actually, since a similar federal system is in place already to pay that out to those same people(ssa), its not all that complicated by comparison.

And the rebate is based not on income, but on spending.

After the Fairtax is passed, it no longer is the business of the federal government how much money you make.

The poverty line of income would convert to the poverty line of spending. IE, you HAVE to spend at least $XX.XX a month to reach poverty level of expenses. and based on that, you get a check to offset the sales tax on it monthly.

mguar wrote: In reply to madmallard: Thanks for that quick explanation.. You're saying it should be like a national sales tax? With a rebate program based on low income? Isn't that horribly cumbersome or is there an easier method to not pay the tax? I'm thinking of some of the people I help who have extremely limited mental acuity.

More cumbersome than a 77000 page, rigged tax code?

mguar wrote: Well I realize that's what you'd like to think but throughout the world taxes from roads typically go back into roads Infrastructure or mass transit. Other taxes pay for health care and social items. Since we pay 2-3-or 4 times what the rest of the world does for health care it's not 18% of our national budget.. It would be nice if we were the healthiest nation but we're not even in the to ten! On some items we're not even in the top 20. Infant mortality for example, we're below most industrial nations..

Again, correlation does not equal causation.

America is one of the most unhealthy countries in the world. 2/3 of adults are overweight or obese, something like 1/6 of the population is on cholesterol reducing statin drugs.

On the whole we don't exercise.......people around here complain about having to park ONE city block from the new BOK center that brings in tons of concerts/shows, etc.

It's our miraculous health care system that keeps people who horrendously unhealthy people alive for decades, IN SPITE OF the terrible lifestyles we choose to live.

It's our miraculous health care system that keeps people who horrendously unhealthy people alive for decades, IN SPITE OF the terrible lifestyles we choose to live.

I actually find more and more amazing examples of just that, considering how poor our voluntary lifestyle choices are (as opposed to involuntary conditions around the world).

All I know is that anything over $1 a gallon for 87 octane is too much.

Another way of looking at it: Todays minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and gas is $4. Work an hour and you can buy just shy of 2 gallons.

What was the minimum wage and gas price in the 60's?, the 70's?, even the 80's?

Yes, there were price spikes here and there but on average fuel is a bigger percentage of your budget than it used to be. Overall cars get better gas mileage now, but that's not enough to offset it totally. Combined with the fact that most people drive many more miles today compared to 15-25 years ago and the issue gets worse.

mguar wrote: I feel sad that you depend on such biased sources for information..

Whatever. Facts is facts. Revenue was higher when Clliton was president. They just were. No matter who's charts and graphs you use. And there's really little- well, absolutely no question that we lowered taxes and went into recession. And no question that there are a load of conservative economists who say the Bush tax cuts are killing us.

But, yeah, whatever. You "feel sad" for me all you like. No, not at all condescending. I feel pretty berkeleying sad that we berkeleyed America in the ass so hard and we're hell bent on electing the berkeleyers who did it so they can have another go.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: Whatever. Facts is facts. Revenue was higher when Clliton was president. They just were. No matter who's charts and graphs you use. And there's really little- well, absolutely no question that we lowered taxes and went into recession. And no question that there are a load of conservative economists who say the Bush tax cuts are killing us.

I'm not sure what unit a 'load' of economists break down into, but i'm sure whatever that metric comes out to be, that they are BY FAR outnumbered by economists who point to out-of-control government spending as a far more serious problem than the monetary value represented by those tax cuts.

Its a fact that our credit bond rating at the federal level was downgraded by outside non-government forces because of the impression of the lack of fiscal accountability of the government, which is not suprising given that we have lived in an entire generation of politicians in congress that have run every budget for decades from a position of debt, not liquidity.

As for the specific discussion on gas prices now, another fact is that gas prices have been higher longer under Obama in 4 years than they were under W in all 8 years, including the 2008 summer spike. And while Obama campaigned under a platform of reducing our foreign dependance on oil, he didn't clarify the terms of how to do that. . . .Meaning this: He's claiming that we are now importing less oil than we are exporting. And thats true. However it omits something very important.

Its because oil costs so much now that its more profitable to ship our oil out on the open world market, not because we're actually producing enough to sustain our own usage. Also, we can't process what we produce to meet our needs anyways. http://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/us-oil-refining-capability/

Thats not how most people envisioned lowering our dependance on foreign oil.... Make it so expensive that to stay in business we have to sell all ours, and make it impossible to domestically process our own... That way, we export everything...

IF you are going to get into Taxes.. consider junking income tax altogether and just going with an across the board sales tax.. similar to Europe's VAT.

It doesn't matter how you make your money... working, stealing, sex.. you still have to buy stuff. People with more money generally buy more things that are expensive than a family of 4 trying to get by on the bare minimum.

this way it is fair to everybody