The government has been setting “goals” for higher efficiency for years. Where’s it got us? About 20mpg on average behind the Europeans (Cite). Would a gas tax spur us to greater fuel efficiency? Probably. It’s also a pretty regressive tax. The government forces automakers to do lots of things that we can probably agree are beneficial to everyone (safety and emissions standards come to mind). Making higher fuel-economy cars is clearly possible (BTW, those Euro cars still meet our safety standards); polls keep saying Americans want them; but evidently the market isn’t making it happen. The market can’t solve every problem. So, we can force the situation by implementing a regressive tax or by requiring US automakers to emulate the cars sold by their European counterparts (who are often divisions of GM and Ford anyway). I like the second option.
The positions and rhetoric in this thread would be a good place to start. Not only do I think that such intervention is a Bad Idea but I also don’t think it will have the effect he seems to be promissing…i.e. lower price for gas at the pump. I think this is standard kool aide for the Dem masses crapola…and it’s just one example. His claims about Iraq and getting troops out are another. I’m all for getting troops out of Iraq asap…but realistically it’s not going to happen as Obama (or Clinton) have been claiming.
Anyway, I find that there are too many points of divergence from my own stance on things like the economy for me to be comfortable supporting Obama. While I still think he is going to win in the end I have to say I’m looking forward to it only slightly more than I did to GW getting re-elected…which is to say that given the choice between a root canal and GW for president I’d be hard pressed to decide which was worse.
I’d probably take one for the country and choose the root canal…without drugs.
-XT
I am not sure he is promising “lower prices” at the pump.
As noted above it is a difficult problem. Higher gas prices are regressive and as such probably something Obama would not like to see. However, lower prices keeps us addicted to foreign oil and harms the environment which is also something few want to see continue.
So what to do? Raise fuel efficiency. Gas may be more expensive but you buy less so it evens out (in theory). I do not buy that because my car is more fuel efficient I will be willing to drive twice as much. I drive when I need to drive and do not go out of my way to take longer routes if my car gets better mileage.
I am amazed at the poo-pooing of any idea in this thread. Higher taxes are bad. Lower taxes are bad. Higher CAFE standards are bad. Funding research into alternatives are bad. Is the solution, for people who oppose those policies, to keep the status quo? Let the market somehow fix it even though the market has done no such thing in the last 30 years? Drill more oil wells? Let new technologies falter because they cannot compete till a critical mass is achieved (which will never be achieved without help)?
If you set things up right, you can always take care of that kind of issue with the EITC. Forcing higher CAFE standards doesn’t ensure that people will use less gas. The best way to do that is to make the cost higher, and then let people figure out the best way to allocate that resource.
Anyway, this is yet another thing that Congress does, not the president. It’s great that Obama has this position as a Senator, but all he can really do as prez is veto what Congress does, and I don’t see either of the 3 candidates set up to veto higher CAFE standards.
Look… I’m an Obama supporter. I plan to vote for him in Nov. I’m just not ready to gush over his every pronouncement, and I’m going to call him on shit I disagree with. Like this, and the garbage about going after “price gouging” in that commercial. Price Gouging means something very specific, and it’s simply not possible to apply that term to gas prices right now. Obama is spreading ignorance in this commercial.
I didn’t say higher gas taxes were necessarily bad…I don’t know who has said that in this thread actually. If you want to use higher taxes to nudge the market I think that this is viable. I also think it’s going to be unpopular but I wouldn’t necessarily let that stand in the way myself…sometimes you have to do unpopular things. I wouldn’t mind higher gas taxes that are used to either pay off national debt or used for general infrastructure (which is pretty much what gas taxes are supposed to be for).
But the rest pretty much I have a problem with. the CAFE standards are a good example of the gubberment trying to ‘fix’ things…and having unintended consequences. And pouring money into what the gubberment decides are the alternatives that will work is a complete waste of money.
Your comment about how the market hasn’t ‘fixed’ the problem in the last 30 years shows just how little you actually understand the market and what it can and can’t do…and also how government initiatives like CAFE factor in. And it highlights the reasons I won’t be voting for Obama…because he doesn’t seem to get it either, at least based on his rhetoric.
-XT
Bayard above mentioned it is a regressive tax and it is.
Since you know the candidates and myself are wrong that would imply you know what the right answer is and I’d be interested in hearing that (really). If it’s good I’ll write you in on my ballot in November. 
Further you imply the market is not the solution to all ills. Some things it can fix. Others it cannot. So apparently there is some place for government intervention. What is appropriate intervention then?
I’m not an expert on how the EITC works or how one claims it, but I’m not persuaded that income tax credits are a very good way of evening things out. It seems to me that the people best equipped to take advantage of income tax credits of any kind are those who either understand the always-lucid IRS instructions or who can hire accountants. I just tried to read the Wiki description of the EITC, and as I don’t have an hour to kill, I gave up. I’m just not confident that the regressive effects of higher gas taxes can be effectively rebalanced at income tax time.
I’m not sure. If the average fuel economy of all vehicles available for sale goes up, I don’t know that that would translate into an equal increase in driving miles. Maybe, I just don’t know. My sense is that the inrease in mpg would more than offest any increase in driving, but I don’t have anything to cite on my behalf.
Me too, on all counts. I have yet to run into someone who gushes over his every pronouncement. If I do, I’ll post about it in MPSIMS, though!
Again, agreed.
All taxes are regressive, so he is correct. It would also be unpopular. However, if you really want to attempt to manipulate things to try and break the hold of oil dependency on the US the only way to do that is to make it expensive. The reason the market hasn’t ‘fixed’ the problem in the past is because there wasn’t a problem to fix…even today gas/oil is cheap compared to the alternatives. And will remain so unless you artificially increase it’s price…like through taxes.
I wasn’t born in the US so even if our two votes ( ) got me elected I couldn’t serve as President. C’est la vie…
Yes, there is a place for government intervention in the form of regulation and monitoring (though obviously I’m going to think that the minimum intervention the better). In this case government intervention in the form of artificially inflating the price of a good for the purpose of weening the public off of the use of that good is…well, not exacty a good thing…but I suppose a spur to the market to find viable alternatives. In the short term it will obviously be unpopular and a hardship on people…but if the goal is to cut CO2 emmissions and to ween us off our dependency on foreign oil then I think this is a viable way to do it.
Going after Big Oil™ for their horrible profits, blah blah blah is NOT a good way to do it. It’s complete bullshit…and simply bread and circusus for the faithful. JMHO there of course.
-XT
Yes, thank you. A world where voters are influenced by logic and substance.
For reference, Bizarro World.
Win-win! 
I’m a free-market libertarian by temperament and training, but I’m still going to vote for Obama because when he reaches across the aisle on these detailed policy positions, the results will be tempered.
Either way, politics is more than just economics, and I think, this time, it’s better to heal the other problems and give up a little on the economic freedom side.
Politics swings like a pendulum, and that’s ok this time.
delete duplicate post–sorry
Yeah, well, if you apply a special tax to cars costing over $250,000 it is technically more onerous to the person with a mere $100 million in the bank than the person with $1 billion. I do not think that is what people have in mind when talking about regressive taxes.
Further, higher costs on many things can be avoided. Most people cannot say they “need” an iPod. Higher gas prices however are unavoidable. To some extent people can mitigate the cost by various means but in the end the higher prices will trickle through to most everything as higher costs for pretty much any good due to increased shipping costs is passed along to the consumer.
As such a gas tax would be particularly regressive and impact low income people disproportionately.
While I think higher prices to an extent are part of the solution I also think subsidies for alternatives is part of the solution. Gas companies are already subsidized in a variety of ways so hardly anything new. The problem for new technologies to compete is overcoming the barriers to entry.
Say they invented a reliable and inexpensive hydrogen fueled car tomorrow. No one could drive the things because there is nowhere to fuel it. Emplacing the substantial infrastructure takes time and money and no one will build Hydrogen fuel station unless there is a market to sell to and conversely no one will by the hydrogen car if there is no place to fuel it. Chicken and egg and needs government help to get off the ground to be a viable alternative.
Then also you have the research and development costs. Who will dump a billion dollars into research if they can find no way to sell the result? Additionally new tech pretty much always costs more. Who will buy when there are cheaper alternatives in fossil fueled vehicles? Then add in whether the US will have a place in owning new tech or if other countries will corner those markets.
There was a day when the US had 40% of the solar cell market. Now it has 8%. US solar companies are actually opening factories in Germany who actively supports the tech thus depriving thousands of US citizens from those well paying jobs. Add on top of that banks and investors who are very reluctant to invest on this in the US because there is no support.
In short the “solution” many here seem to advocate is to maintain the status quo and hope the market will automagically sort it out when it cannot. I find that amazingly short sighted.
I voted for Obama but for him to claim short term ineffective solutions are the hallmark of Washington and he’s going to tell us ‘honest answers, not gimmicks’ (implying it’s going to be bad news but effective) then end his message with his solutions:
Raise fuel efficiency standards
Develop alternative fuels
$1,000 middle class tax cut :dubious:
Which says, ‘They want to give you $30, I want to give you $1,000.’
A wiser electorate would not need to be pandered to. But whose fault is that? And a man who panders to me rather than to the “Reverend” Mr. Hagee is a far wiser choice, in my estimation. Progressivism is a direction rather than an agenda. it is foolish to acknowledge a need for change and then insist that the methods to reach that change must be set in stone. Its not so much what he can do as what we can do.
Besides that, an income tax cut is not a short term fix. It’s a structural repair that allows people to make choices about the money they earn. An economy is all about the aggregate of individual choices. The temporary gas tax suspension is a Soviet style subsidy of one commodity over another. Like the mayor says, it’s stupid.
Awesome. Funny that I nailed what you meant, but thought you meant the opposite. I must be living in Bizarro World, too. :smack:
It is when it’s up for a vote every year. Or even every 4 years.
In 1909 the first Model T got 13 to 21 mpg. In 1974 CAFE was introduced with the intention of improving average fuel economy (sales weighted) from the then current average of slightly less than 14mpg to 27.5mpg by 1985. CAFE standards have remained roughly the same since then, as has average fuel economy. So there was no improvement in average mpg for 60 years before regulation and no improvement for 20 years after.
I agree with you that the market seems to be shifting towards better fuel economy in the last few years and that trend seems likely to continue. Changes that society chooses to make are always better than those that are forced on us, and maybe further government regulation isn’t necessary. But our history in this arena hasn’t been impressive.
Sure it has…if you put things into context and also look at historically cheap commodities that became expensive and were eventually replaced by new methods or new materials. Making more efficient vehicles wasn’t a problem fixed by the market in the past because, well, it wasn’t a problem in the past. Fuel has always been relatively cheap and abundant…and the alternatives and research were expensive. So…people didn’t WANT more fuel efficient cars, therefore the market didn’t product them. People wanted SUV’s and more powerful cars…so that’s what the market produced for them.
Take a look around today though. Sales of hybrids is up…and multiple manufacturers now have hybrids available, instead of just a few…or one. Also, manufacturers are starting to focus more on improved mileage in vehicles instead of bigger and more powerful vehicles. Consider the new Chevy ads with their multi-tiered greener cars…from hybrids to all electric. Then consider…why are they doing that? Because the government is ordering them to? Or because people are now leaning in that direction?
None of this stuff takes the government to regulate…when gas prices reach a certain level people start the make new decisions on what to drive and what they need. Historically this is pretty much what happens to any commodity when it goes from being highly available and cheap to scarce and expensive. People automatically start making different choices.
-XT