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I generally vote Republican on the national level and oppose tax hikes, but you have to recognize that there are some things that the government 100% should be doing, maintaining the highway system being one of them, and it's better to fund these things with taxes than by piling on ever more debt. Taxing gasoline also has the nice bonus of incenting better behavior from people for our national security and environment, as opposed to most of the tax revenue which punishes above-the-table labor.
It's a regressive tax that hits the middle and lower class workers the worst. Get rid of it for now! There are not many inverted cost-push deals like this around. Lower energy costs are good for almost everyone and most of the economy. This is just the sort of deflationary stimulus that we should be praying for!
You raise taxes if and when onerous inflation raises its ugly head. Today eliminating the Federal gas tax would still be a useful stimulus. Especially as middle class wages lag.
What is it you propose replace that tax? If you want to reduce taxes I think you look at other taxes.
It's a regressive tax that hits the middle and lower class workers the worst. Get rid of it for now! There are not many inverted cost-push deals like this around. Lower energy costs are good for almost everyone and most of the economy. This is just the sort of deflationary stimulus that we should be praying for!
Well-maintained roads and bridges are also good for almost everyone and most of the economy. That needs to be paid for one way or another.
If you want a progressive tax system it's better to combine slightly more progressive income taxes with taxes on social ills like pollution and driving up cash outflows from the first world to the petro-states, than it is to purge the tiny slice of our tax pie that has good rather than bad knock-on effects.
I had a low-paying job with a long driving commute away at one point -- I know how much it sucks to drop 10% of your paycheck on gas and tolls, but even then I also understood that structuring government funding that way is in the end far better for us as a society than funding the stuff with additional taxes on labor, or worse piling up more debt, or worst of all failing to maintain our infrastructure adequately.
What is it you propose replace that tax? If you want to reduce taxes I think you look at other taxes.
You either find some BS tax to move over to replace it. Or you create more national debt. There is always that choice. And the state of the economy helps to dictate which way to go. In a poor economy we should tend to create the money and lower middle class taxes.
No hybrid here, just an 8 year old ford focus that we get 30+mpg with.
Michigan is dealing with the same problem. Even Pub Gov Synder(business man) got backhanded by his own party this year, when he asked for additional billion plus to fix the roads, with a tax hike at the center. They basically told him to go "f" himself.
Not saying that raising taxes is always the answer but the no tax increase people are leaving their progeny a large repair bill due in the future.
Actually the states that tax as a percent rather than flat are taking a hit, although they reaped the benefits at $4 per gallon. This would actually create jobs and put people back to work our infrastructure has been neglected.
I'm not sure why this opinion has gotten so much more popular on the left these days. Are people really so short-term focused or naive to believe that it doesn't have to be paid, defaulted on directly, or defaulted on via inflation some day? Or are the Democrats pushing infinite drunken deficit spending secretly rooting for hyperinflation (without thinking it through and realizing that Republicans, if the Democrats force them to choose between hyperinflation and a default, will probably pick default, and can force that through the debt ceiling)?
You raise taxes if and when onerous inflation raises its ugly head. Today eliminating the Federal gas tax would still be a useful stimulus. Especially as middle class wages lag.
How do you fund the federal highway and rail system without a tax. We already pay some of the lowest prices in the world, I don't see eliminating this tax as stimulating anything other than continued misuse of limited energy resources and a continued reliance on cheap energy.
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