Remember a few years ago, when gasoline “spiked” up to around $1.75 and everyone started freaking out? People actually started stealing gas from other people’s cars, and filling up their tanks at gas stations, then leaving without paying.
Well now I’ve seen gas over $3/gallon, and people don’t really seem to care. They got used to it I suppose.
I think we need gas to be $15/gallon overnight (like add a 500% tax to it or something). At $15/gallon, people would start using public transportation and get rid of some traffic, pollution, etc. Making it a tax could keep the actual gas costs down, so airliners and public transportation would be inexpensive still (make them tax exempt).
There are other benefits as well… the US consumes roughly 130,000,000,000 gallons of gasoline in a year. If we jack the price to $15, let’s say gasoline consumption gets cut in half (or so). That would drive down the raw price of oil (airliners could get gas for probably $0.50 or so per gallon). But… here’s the biggie. 65B gallons of gas, with a $14 per gallon tax works out to nearly a trillion dollars/year ($910B to be exact) in gasoline tax revenue. That would solve the budget deficit problems that Bush gifted to the United States. Although, maybe they should wait until Bush is out of office before something like that went into affect, because somehow the administration would spend it all (and more) I’m sure.
With that kind of money, we could build fiber to every home with 100Mbit Internet connections. That would let most people telecommute to work (and they wouldn’t need gas to commute then).
I should run for office, because I’m full of good ideas. heh
BTW, this is coming from a guy with a car that gets crappy gas mileage.
It might also help drive the development of Fuel cell cars, Hydrogen based engines and other technology that has been slow to change since the automotive and gasoline company stranglehold over the market. The combustable engine is HOW OLD? There have been so many advances in not only fuel efficiency but in emerging technology. Would be cool to see a $15 gas hike though… I wish my town had more public transportation!
You forget how large of a population lives in the rural areas. $15 a gallon would starve millions.
Maybe if you only taxed people that could use mass transportation…
I live 12 miles away from my office in a rural area, and I’m on call and sometimes have to work long days. I’ve got to have my car.
How about we promote biodiesel. Then you’ll create more jobs in the US refining it, more profits for farmers growing corn and soybeans to process, and diesel has more energy per gallon then gasoline.
Your 100% right fast internet connections, wifi and enough people can work from home, shop from home. The roads will have mainly delivery vehicles on it shipping from giant automated hypermarkets (running on hydrogen fuel cells – hybrids for now). Call it “Warehouse Culture”. It is really time we did something about the damage we are doing.
Sounds good to me… I bet if gas was $15/gallon tomorrow, we would see not only alternative methods of transportation, but also alternative fuels. In the end, it’s all about supply and demand…
How about just a simple tax credit to companies based on the percentage of homebased hours a year?
Shawn fer President!
Further reading: “The Bottomless Well” by Peter W. Huber, Mark P. Mills, 2005.
Please Shawn, don’t give Cheney and Bush any ideas, the economy is wasted at $3.50 a gallon.
Do you want to drive commerce by getting folks to switch back to horse and buggy and riding bikes?
Hell we should go back to horse and buggy and a lot of other out of date stuff, folks would have a higher quality of life then.
Nice preaching–but what about your hummer? Maybe you should practice what you preach.
I would practice what I preach, I would gladly pay for gas if all stations had it for $15/gallon.
Very good reading. Peace until next time.
WaltDe
Very Good! The US would become a third world nation so quick, most of the world would not even see China and the muslims coming until they were all enslaved. Great idea!
what a fucking stupid idea
Gosh Shawn – it’s 05/26/2008 and gasoline in my yown now ranges from $3.99 to $4.19 per gallon. Oil just broke another cherry at $135.00 per barrel. The word is – the galloping increase in the price of oil and gasoline is not over. Yet, every morning when I scooter in to work on Vespa LX150 I see one SUV after another. The pain at the pump ain’t enough for all those chumps yet.
$14.00 per gallon gas tax? Yep, I’m for it!
But if you want to watch Barack or Hillary or John blanch in public – present that suggestion to any of them and you will. Hell, I think one’em even recently talked about cutting the tax for a while. Congress in a panicked frenzy voted to stop putting anything in the oil reserve.
So, today (05/26/20) any politician who even mentions raising the tax on gasoline (esp. after the recent $4.00 per gallon price was breached) would be committing at least political suicide and might even be setting him or herself up for a real assassination by some crazed Hummer or SUV owner who lives out in the Suburbs in the big $350.000.00 home in the cul-de-sac neighborhood.