Have to agree with the previus responses to this. You’re making it sound like the 25 cents a week is enough to fix whatever deficit the government is running. That would be reasonable if that’s where it ended. But you know damn well that quarter a week is never going to go away, and that in a month or two there will be another quarter somehow bled from you for whatever reason a lawmaker can dream up.
And I also agree with the sentiment of how this hurts the poor. (Just like any other “sin tax”.) Gas, smokes, booze. The taxes hurt lower income folks much more than anything that has to do with income taxes.
The “rich” pay the lion’s share of income tax, yet any tax break is derided as a benefit to the rich and hurtful to the poor. The truly poor not only don’t pay income tax, but actually receive refunds of payments they never made thanks to credits and deductions.
When gas goes up because of taxes, there is nothing the poor can do but pay it. I wonder how much the “rich” save in deducting the gas tax for travel expenses, or get reimbursed by their employer.
To touch on the smoking issue, what the hell are these states doing with all that settlement money? I seem to remember Wisconsin and Minnesota getting a nice chunk of that money, yet every year they want to tax more to recover the costs that were supposed to be covered by the settlement.
Sorry for the hijack from what the OP was going for, but these small increases that never, ever go away add up to real money.
I’m a little biased being in the highway industry, but those states that have the higher gas taxes are going to have the roads in the better condition. That 25 cents per week just might save you a suspension or a tire. If we didn’t raise gas taxes, how would you expect your state DOT to keep up with inflation? Like they say, you get what you pay for.
How bout doing things right the first time? I swear to god I’ve seen intersections (on a State highway) around here ripped up three summers in a row. I’ve heard that certain contractors have sweetheart deals with the State. That those same contractors aren’t held to the original quote. That kick-backs and cost overruns are extraordinary for any other comparable construction. That the lawmakers refuse to look at other ways of cutting costs instead of raising taxes. When’s the last time you heard anyone in government say, “Never mind, we won’t need to raise taxes, we found some fat in other parts of the budget.” , or “We’ve been budgeting for this project the last ten years and we can comfortably say that we won’t need to raise taxes or borrow monies to cover this one.”, or “Now that that project has been paid for (via tax) we are now ending that 1/2 cent per gallon tax, effective immediately.”
As far as keeping up with inflation?? Aren’t State taxes sort of already locked in to the rise of inflation? We (the collective we) make more each year, therefore our taxes go up a little each year, the keeping up with inflation you speak of should occur naturally. It needn’t be trotted out as a reason to raise taxes every year.
True, gallon per person useage of gas stays about the same so the State doesn’t stand to get more money from gas tax each year, but I still think it’s immoral for the State to keep raising the gas tax. Like others and myself have said, it hurts the average Joe the most, those who can least afford it.
And another thing, the guys who can least afford it aren’t the same guys traipsing all over the State in their SUV’s hauling camping trailers to and fro. Or worse, RV’s.
There are always cutbacks that the State can look into but refuses to do because they can always rely on the trusty taxpayer to make up the difference.
I can appreciate you being in the highway industry, it ain’t easy work. But is there any reason why, when a length of highway is reworked, they can’t just shut the whole thing down, rework a few miles of it and then re-open it? Fucking around with partial lane closures, barricades, doing half a bridge at a time, speeding cars, making temporary lanes in the distress lane, temporarily blacktopping crossovers, etc. is got to be an incredible waste of money and time for you guys. Screw the road for a few weeks, shut down the route and completely redo the thing without worrying about keeping a partial lane open for the few screwballs that can’t navigate a detour.
The Marquette interchange in Milwaukee comes to mind. I’d rather have the whole interchange shut down for two years and have them do the work than have it under a constant state of ‘carpet bomb’ for 5-6 years just so there can always be one lane of parked cars on the freeway.
The reason for price swings generally involve many components, pinning it on one event such as the fuel makeup changeover is not always the full picture.
Take a look at the IEA monthly oil market reports for a fuller description.
For canadian prices from 1988 onwards the price has followed the WTI crude price pretty well. There certainly is more volatility, but that would be expected due to the additional trading and processing steps that need to be factored into the gasoline price and the spread in prices of blend of crudes used, not just WTI.
For those comparing prices between countries, the link also shows a break down of price with and without tax. Oddly fuels is cheaper in the UK than it is in the US.
The EIA http://www.eia.doe.gov/ had some more updated information and comparisons in a recent report, but buggered if I can find the link.
So why the increased volatility in retail prices, I would take a swinging hairy WAG
that retail guys have better information available to make their decisions and the consequences of a small % swing in a real price at 70 cents per liter is much greater than the same percentage swing in 40 cents per liter. In this market no one want to get caught wit their pants down selling gas that they have to pay more to replace, and they also realize the consumer is very price sensitive at these levels, so don’t want to loose out on volume when they can afford to drop the price.
Gas is up here because of a fire at an oil refinery. So they say. My hubby says the price will go down once everyone catches up with filling up, etc.
I say it won’t. :dubious:
Oh, and the PM says he will go after any stations raising their prices to take advantage of the situation. Yeah, right. The last time anyone in any kind of office in Ontario and Canada did anything they said they would was …mmmmmm…oh, that would be NEVER!!!
