Millions in California could get up to $800 in gas tax refunds

Millions in California could get up to $800 in gas tax refunds to fight high fuel prices, governor proposes

I understand the pain at the pump, but cheap gas is not a right...

And before someone douses me with expensive gas and lights me off, I personally am having a hard time with bills right now.

So, gas is expensive.  CA has almost 50 cents a gallon in taxes on gas.  People who drive and use a lot of gas are spending a lot.  So....  just send everyone with a car $400 via a debit card.

If only there was a better way to ease the high cost of gas....

(my wife and I both work at home and do very little driving, and we will get $800 to pay for gas.... yeah)

Just drop the 50 cent extra tax for 6 months.

but that would not get the votes that. $400 check would !

cheapest gas yesterday on our 50 mile cruise to the chrome shops etc was $5.53 a gallon

californiamilleghia said:

but that would not get the votes that. $400 check would !

Oh, dear!  That sounds so very cynical. 

Let's withhold judgment until we see if they time the arrival of the checks a few days before election day. 

Very short sighted solution to a continuing problem. Must be a tough career being a economist when nobody listens lolz.

californiamilleghia said:

$5.53 a gallon

Lucky bastard...I paid $5.999 for 87 yesterday at Chevron and that was with a twenty cent supermarket rewards discount.

My MIL broke her hip last week so we'll be doing an eleven hundred mile road trip starting tomorrow in a 2016 Explorer.

Don't worry kids, college is over rated.

trigun7469 said:

Very short sighted solution to a continuing problem. Must be a tough career being a economist when nobody listens lolz.

It's not that nobody listens.  Politicians listen to Keynesian economists all the time.  It's just that Keynesian economists permanently look like this when all the dumb E36 M3 that anyone with a brain could have predicted happens:

And that's all I'm going to contribute to this discussion.

RX Reven' said:

californiamilleghia said:

$5.53 a gallon

Lucky bastard...I paid $5.999 for 87 yesterday at Chevron and that was with a twenty cent supermarket rewards discount.

My MIL broke her hip last week so we'll be doing an eleven hundred mile road trip starting tomorrow in a 2016 Explorer.

Don't worry kids, college is over rated.

 

The place across the street from $5.53  (AM-PM). it was $6.12 at the 76 station .....

I saw $3.65 a gallon at the Race Trak coming to work this morning.

In reply to Duke :

That's an interesting hypothesis, but given the current trend of executives giving the boot to otherwise well-qualified advisors with a political ideology that differs from their own, I'd say not.  I strongly suspect that Newsome is not troubled by a diversity of economic thought amongst his staff.  I suspect this is exactly what any person with a brain would see it for-- a shameless bid to buy votes.

The thing I find interesting about gasoline prices is that they are entirely up to the suppliers to set their prices.  But you look at the other "utilities" we consume, when the provider of say water wants to raise their prices they have to present their desires to a utilities control board and show cause for the increased cost.  Some little old lady on a fixed income will stand up and complain that she won't be able to afford cat food if the cost of unlimited clean fresh water piped directly to her house goes up by $5 a month.

But since gasoline isn't piped to our houses it somehow avoids the "utility" label.  Even though I can't exactly saddle up my horse to get to work.  And I'm too poor to afford a $60,000 electric car so I'll continue to be at the mercy of The Man.

KyAllroad said:

The thing I find interesting about gasoline prices is that they are entirely up to the suppliers to set their prices.  But you look at the other "utilities" we consume, when the provider of say water wants to raise their prices they have to present their desires to a utilities control board and show cause for the increased cost.  Some little old lady on a fixed income will stand up and complain that she won't be able to afford cat food if the cost of unlimited clean fresh water piped directly to her house goes up by $5 a month.

But since gasoline isn't piped to our houses it somehow avoids the "utility" label.  Even though I can't exactly saddle up my horse to get to work.  And I'm too poor to afford a $60,000 electric car so I'll continue to be at the mercy of The Man.

Because utilities have state-granted monopolies in most cases.

Gasoline does not.

And here I am, pressing my luck again.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Incumbency winning is 90% or more in some areas, especially when they have been in office forever. When I visited my state capital and talked with local politicians and asked some tough questions I was met with excuses and laying blame others. They brought a community college that was not needed and told me your welcome lolz. I am thinking this is just a way to quite the audience to say we did something and remind them continuously how great they are...

In reply to Duke :

To expand on that, those monopolies exist because We don't want to have / it would impractical to build water plants and mains and sewers and electric transmission lines and gas pipes and phone wires for twenty different providers.  So we grant a regulated monopoly to those utilities or, in some cases, the municipality runs that function.  

There are plenty of street corners on which to stand up a gas station.

Utilities aren't regulated because we've decided that it's something that's important for people.  They're regulated because we've granted them a monopoly and that reduces the effect of market forces on them.

In reply to wae :

Thank you.

Noddaz said:

Millions in California could get up to $800 in gas tax refunds to fight high fuel prices, governor proposes

I understand the pain at the pump, but cheap gas is not a right...

And before someone douses me with expensive gas and lights me off, I personally am having a hard time with bills right now.

 

I haven't read any of the info on it, but the cynical side of me wonders if this would end up like the child tax credit with the state trying to recover the money at tax filing time (or other equally unappealing way to recover it). 

Gas tax in Maryland is .33 cents per gallon.

And we are having a "gas tax" holiday.

I don't agree with that either.

So, the question from the guy in the audience: How much free market is there for the gas station owners?

Here is a good breakdown of the various costs associated with a gallon of gas in California, and a comparison to the same gallon in 2014...

Costs that go into a gallon of CA gas

It's a good read, but here is a quick view of the breakdown...

PA has (I think) the highest tax per gallon on gasoline of any state.  Editorials for fuel tax relief have been popping up like prairie dogs. Our idiot, final term governor will have none of it, of course.

I haven't heard anyone here in Kentucky talking about gas taxes, but the gov did use an executive order to tweak the auto ad valorem tax.  We're one of a handful of states where your car registration each year includes a tax based on the value of the vehicle.  I don't recall which valuation book they use, but there's no real wiggle room on it for actual condition or mileage or anything, they just take the average value and apply a tax based on that.  Thus, as the value of the vehicle changes, so does the tax you pay every year.  It gets a little interesting for classic cars - apparently once it hits a certain age, they assume it's really not worth much of anything and I think you pay more in the associated fees for libraries and schools than you do in the tax.

Apparently, none of the chuckleheads down in Frankfort studied Latin, because if they did, they would know that ad valorem translates to something like "to the value of".  Meaning that the tax is based on the value of the asset.  Apparently with the whole weirdness in the car markets, people were shocked - SHOCKED, I tell you! - to discover that their car is now worth more than it was previously and thus the tax that is tied to that value has gone up.  So, they went ahead and, by executive order, threw out the 2022 book and are using the 2021 book for valuations. 

panem et circenses, my friends.