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"If you're so smart, then how.....", Followed by a blanket request to raise federal taxes $1 per gallon. Another thread wanted to penalize any trip by motor vehicle UNDER two miles because it was "wasteful" and proposed $500 fines for circling the block to beat the system. But neither idea was progressive. The first is a knee jerk suggestion to punish the poor, inconvenience the middle class, and would be unnoticed by those of means. The second is a green/health nazi who could care less how much you use as long as you do it large...and this second requires a HUGE investment in tracking and adjudicating...
But suppose we treated gasoline progressively? If you used little it cost you less and if you used moderately it cost more and if you used TONS it cost like plutonium?? Well, first of all, it would require a "national ID" but we are kind of there with our licences, aren't we? Now let's look at basics...Let's say that no federal tax accrued to the first 520 gallons per licensed driver per year-that's 10 gallons per driver, per week. Every gas purchase nationwide would be recorded by an ATM type card swipe. Between 520 and 1,040 gallons per year the normal pump price would apply. After 1,040 gallons till 1,560 gallons a .50 cent per gallon surcharge would be assessed.Eached additional 10 gallons would be assessed an additional .50 cents.
I made a chart for this, but don't know how to post it...but it works out like this...if you use under 20 gallons per week you would save money-and this is the majority of the working poor. At 30 miles per gallon per week you would pay a $5 premium per week...parity is passed when you pass 70 gallons per week-at the flat rate your surcharge is $70, but under my progressive plan you pay $75...By the point the flat rate charges $100 the progressive rate is $180...See my point...
You want to reward the reduction of use? Who can more easily afford to either trim use OR purchase fuel efficient vehicles? And look at the choices it offers...it suddenly incentivizes exactly the highest fuel users that need to go hybrid. SS retirees who travel once a week to shop are actually discounted, even in fossil fuel dinosaurs, which may be all they can afford.
To ease the problems of "gasoline indebtedness" at the pump lock in the tax rate to within 30 gallons of monthly usage and let people choose their tax surcharge for those who cannot afford a year end lump sum. This would allow people to "float" vacation travel.
I'm sure it sounds complex, and yet in Europe they compute the value added tax in every town and village. It is about fairness. Also picture the "barter" value of a licensed driver who was for whatever reason without a vehicle...His tax exemption or reduced rate would encourage EXACTLY the type behaviors environmentalists crave...a trading of their need for transport being translated into high occupancy vehicles...
So there's my idea in the down and dirty...a national entitlement to be transported a small distance more cheaply than those who needn't care. It ain't cheap or easy and requires a large infrastructure to track data-wise...but with a NEW- New Deal I understand we need to give some extra people jobs, and I'm betting some like math.
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