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Home Front: Politix
Raising Federal Gas Taxes Raised to... Stop Terrorism?
2008-12-14
The Washington Post is directing a December 8 plea to the incoming Obama administration. The Post wants to raise the federal gas tax so high that it will stop people from driving. The Post thinks this will serve our national security purposes and add more money to rebuild our nation's roads.
If people stop driving why rebuild the roads? ...
Apparently, the Washington Post has the foolishly mistaken notion that federal gas tax receipts actually go where our Congress initially claimed it was going to go; our nation's roads. In fact, nearly half of the federal gas tax receipts go to pork instead of roads and infrastructure.

But, despite the waste by government, here is the Washington Post trying to soak America's drivers even more by suggesting Congress raise the federal gas tax by 46 cents a gallon. The Post thinks that recently falling gas prices offers a "golden opportunity" for the government to emulate Europe and pile taxes high on each gallon purchased. The Post is obviously unaware that the US did not become the greatest nation on earth by emulating Europe!

Posted by:Glugum Slinerong9862

#7  ZF, I still use rantburg as my news source. I have taken on a second job and have time to formulate worthwhile comments.
Posted by: Super Hose   2008-12-14 16:40  

#6  Super Hose: Obama would do well to follow their advice because it is a well known fact that only families with a greater income than $200K drive vehicles.

Welcome back. Long time, no see, in a manner of speaking.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-12-14 16:29  

#5  An extra fifty cent tax will be pretty inconvenient when prices return to three dollars a gallon. I wonder if the editorial staff has consulted with their CFO to see what the impact of 50 cents a gallon will be on their delivery operation.

Obama would do well to follow their advice because it is a well known fact that only families with a greater income than $200K drive vehicles.
Posted by: Super Hose   2008-12-14 16:03  

#4  Bush should have considered this after Sept 11. The taxes linked to the War Declaration so that they could not be kept afterwards. That way gas prices would go up and people would drive less (feel the pain of the war a bit) and less money would go to Saudi coffers while bringing cash to pay for the war.

Now the tax seems less useful as people are already driving a lot less and the Saudi's have nearly a decade of profits spread out to Maddrassas.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-12-14 13:39  

#3  bigjim, Heh.
Posted by: Hellfish   2008-12-14 13:22  

#2  What do you mean too stupid OR to dishonest?
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-12-14 10:55  

#1  It doesn't really matter where tax receipts "go." A tax increase of any kind, even fuel taxes are a transfer of wealth from private hands to the one sector most responsible for the economic problems we all now face.

The editorial writers at the Washington Post are either too stupid or too dishonest to admit the real world and undesirable results from tax increases.
Posted by: badanov   2008-12-14 10:40  

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