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I like to believe that our politicians can't possibly be as dumb as they sound. It's more a result of the game that our system forces them to play. I suspect that if you could ask everyone of our legislators to give his personal, off the record, point of view on higher gas taxes a good percentage of them would be in favor.
If they could, the US Postal Service would never have had competition from UPS, FedEx, et al. Why start a company whose excellence you can only equal, rather than outdo?
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Let's take a look at the history of taxation: income tax was supposed to be a temporary measure to pay for the Civil War, the WWI. However, it did not expire after WWI because the money was there, and the political class became entrenched enough to have the balls to say the tax stays even if the war was over. The rest as they say was history. Even if most of us are too young to remember how income tax itself came and stayed, the experience of the last decade alone: how when a brief couple years in which government ran an (accounting) surplus due to booming economy, numerous new programs were immediately passed into existence to use up all that surplus and resulted in a deficit bigger than ever as soon as the boom was over. That's just how governments work; fundamentally how things work when people are given the power to spend someone else' money. The more tax they collect, the bigger the deficit will be in the next economic down turn because the surplus in the boom years will make more spending programs into reality.
If we break down the firewall that says gasoline tax is for highway funding only, it will just become yet another source of "general fund" for predation by lobbyists.
Locomotives transitioned from the highly polluting coal burning steam engines to much cleaner internal combustion engines long before EPA existed. Electric Trams existed long before the EPA. EPA power does not extend to high seas, yet we do not see massively polluting cargo ships or cruise liners burning the cheapest fuel available (coal) any more.
EPA is not mandating hybrids, yet hybrids like Prius haev been selling quite well. Why wouldn't people choose to have cleaner cars even without EPA? Why would anyone attribute the natural human drive to better living conditions to EPA alone??
To extend the desert driving analogy you had, it's as if we are running a winery in an oasis: we could import oil for our transportational needs, or we could distill our wine into 180-proof brandy and pour that into our tanks. Anyone with real life economic sense could easily see that importing oil instead of burning brandy really isn't such a bad idea.
The pursuit of self-sufficiency despite economic common sense lead to failed states like North Korea.
1900's saw one of the longest period of peace in Europe after the Concert of Vienna post-Napoleonic Wars. Warm weather may well have had a lot to do with it. Warmth, prosperity and peace work in a auspicious cycle of mutual re-inforcement . . . as opposed to the vicious cycle of cold, depravity and war when major vulcanic eruptions caused worldwide cooling by a few degrees. . . hence the literary description of "cold and dark" to characterise the Hobbesian world.
BTW, economic growth is not about shuffling money around for the benefit of some bureacrats' pet project. Making things that people do not want on their own without government co-ercion is not going to improve the economy. For example, spending 100 trillion dollars on stamping Gore statuettes is not going to increase the size of the economy by 100 trillion dollars regardless how the government statistic bureau counts it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of taxation or the government. I do think that the government is in a unique position to accomplish things that no person, group or corporation could or would accomplish. Given the US's vulnerabiliy in this regard, reducing fuel consumption and stimulating the development of alternatives is something that the government should undertake. A tax, IMO, would be the most expeditious and efficient way of accomplishing this. I realize that you believe achieving revenue neutrality is impossible. I disagree. If a candidate came along championing tax reform would you oppose him? I'm not talking about tax reduction, just simplification. You're position seems to be that this is not possible because every change in taxes, other than a tax cut, will result in greater overhead and overall higher taxation.
Wow, something we agree on. I've actually advocated that position before. I've told people driving their Priuses and trying to conserve that while their motives are commendable they are only delaying the inevitable. Since we choose not to act but rather react when faced with a crisis then let's bring it. Out of necessity we will arrive at a solution and sooner is better than later.
Rocky
it's not that they aren't producing but the price you are paying for those services could easily be done much cheaper by the government. The business I'm in can't be dump and the DOD can do nothing about it because the DOE is in charge on one end of the spectrum.
The contractor is following human nature to greedily take that money foolishly handed out by Congress.
That's not exactly true. DOE, goes to congress and asks for more money for the federal contractor. Do you think bottom feeder employees like me are getting that money ? Absolutely not !!!! They want to cut our pay and benefits while they pay themselves bonuses for doing their job. :mad:
Rocky
Your ranking has nothing to do with how many they have closed over the years when we could use a increase number to buy more oil volume to refine into gas and those savings would be passed on to the consumer.
Rocky
That may be but is the US Postal service making a profit or are they subsidized with tax dollars or tax breaks? If that's the case then you can't just look at what it costs to send your package. You've got to realize that you paid some of that postage via the IRS.
No, I don't want the government to take over the oil company's but I would like the government to break them up into smaller entity's with federal over site.
Rocky
Rocky
It's actually not all that surprising when considering the political climate. Scientists who advocated huge fines for industrial SO2 emission are now contemplating plans to artificially dump huge quantities SO2 into the air in order to keep temperature down. There are actually logical consistency to their arguments:
(1) they get paid to write; it's either publish or die. The more outrageous the better.
(2) Both plans involve government intervention in the name of common good. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as the theory supports more tax collection and spending by the government, it's all "good."
1. Not many nations are located near the equator. Most of earth's landmass is in the seasonal part of northern hemisphere;
2. Tropical weather patterns are quite different from warmer seasonal climates. Lack of seasons in the tropics does not help promote the habit of resource management, which historically started with star-gazing in order to come up with a calendar to manage seasonal agriculture. There wasn't whole lot of great civilizations in the tropics to begin with.
3. Out of the great land masses that are available on this planet, rich nations and great civilizations did/do tend to congregate near the warmer side of seasonal lands. For example, Mediteranean and West Europe (which is much warmer than interior Europe thanks to warm ocean currents) were the economic and cultural centers of Europe. In asia, the civilizations were located in southwestern, southern, and southeastern parts of the continent, not the great northern steppes.
Not really that big a leap. Sometimes in order to convince people that something needs to fixed you have to convincingly demonstrate that it's broken. I've had similar discusions with people regarding how litigious our society has become. I've suggested that a possible way to expedite a solution is for everyone to constantly think of a reason to sue and to act on this. Eventually there would be no other recourse but to declare the system broken and come up with an alternative.
I accept the fact that you are adamently opposed to higher fuel taxes. You need to accept the fact that high fuel costs driven by market conditions will accomplish the same objective. Either way I'll be happy. I think that the country would have been better off had this been a planned transition. My personal situation is that I'll get by relatively unscathed regardless of how it pans out.
Let's say that some time in the near future there is a disruption in the oil supply and gas prices skyrocket. A very real possibility. Given this scenario you must realize that a good percentage of the US population will be clamoring for the government to do something about this crisis. Indulge me and imagine this is occurring and you are in charge of the government. What would you tell these people?
Rocky
I doubt very much prolonged higher fuel cost will leave anyone unscathed. Cost of driving would be the least of concerns. The cost of food and heating/cooling would be much more significant; followed by the ripple effect of fellow Americans losing their jobs because business bankruptcy due to high fuel cost. If you have savings, you will also be the big loser because higher fuel cost and consequent higher price for everything means lower purchasing power for your savings.
Let's say that some time in the near future there is a disruption in the oil supply and gas prices skyrocket.
We already had that when oil price went to $70 a barrel. If it reached over $80 and stayed there, making oil from coal would have been viable. Then oil crisis would be over. Sure the cost of doing business would be higher, but there would be no shortage. The shortage of the 1970's was the result of government price control. This time around, despite the proclamations of some luddites, no price control was enforced so no shortage. There is no good reason to make the cost of doing business higher as if the crisis already happened, when cheaper energy is readily available. It's like, sure, building upper body strength is important in a work out regimen for teens, but why chop off the legs to force the kid "walk" on his arms?
Rocky
Constitutional safeguard regarding liberty, freedom and pursuit of happiness is what most really mean when they use the word "democracy." That is increasingly detached from reality in Putin's Russia.
It just seems that they have hella trouble with their Mob over there and lots and lots of people very, very poor. Wasn't this happening with Kruschnef, too?
My former employer Boeing has gone over there to do business with some engineering firms. To save money, of course. Boeing is real good at giving their own people the shaft and coming up with "brilliant" ideas like this that look good to outsiders but smack of big-ugly rude business to insiders. They will lay you off in an instant and they do. Glad to be long gone from that monstrosity.
Russia still is getting Chechnyan reminders of people who don't like their current system but must obey. I don't see a whole lot of change there in Russia but they don't have that nail-biting fear of being blown off the face of the earth anymore by the U.S. Right?
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Bill Clinton approved of the oil company mergers in the 1990s. That was a big mistake in my opinion. Maybe he got a lot of oil executives to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom at $400k a night. If you are hoping this Congress will do anything about the way oil companies operate you are living in a Disneyland kind of world. Even as we speak they are playing politics with the first bit of legislation pushed through. Minimum wage for all but American Samoa. Does Tuna-gate ring a bell?
Bill Clinton approved of the oil company mergers in the 1990s. That was a big mistake in my opinion.
Well when Willy was in office we also didn't have $2.00-$7.00 gas. I think at the time they worked on keeping prices low instead of like now they charge what they want and will find any excuse to raise it.
Maybe he got a lot of oil executives to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom at $400k a night.
I think you got the president's mixed up because Dubya raised over $80 million in campaign contributions from big oil alone.
If you are hoping this Congress will do anything about the way oil companies operate you are living in a Disneyland kind of world.
I have absolutely no doubt they will try but Dubya, will be waiting on the other end with his Veto stamp.
Even as we speak they are playing politics with the first bit of legislation pushed through. Minimum wage for all but American Samoa. Does Tuna-gate ring a bell?
They have to play politics. If the democrats are going to get anything to pass they are going to need bi-partisan support. Dubya, is the president and has the power to Veto bills the democrats propose. Playing politics is the name of the game when you have a democrat majority in congress and a republican president. Bush, doesn't have to run for re-election so he is in a position to play hard ball with the dems. :sick:
I'm not a huge Clinton policy fan but overall he wasn't a bad president. I however found him very likable even though he made some mistakes. I like former Senator John Edwards, but am praying former 4-star General Wesley Clark will throw his hat in the ring one last time. Wes Clark, IMHO is the most qualified on paper to be president. He has spoken a great deal about this topic and his solution is to make a multi-billion dollar investment in alternative energy's and create the infrastructure to support it. That means giving money to the automobile industry and alternative energy sectors that lack the funding to rapidly grow and expand which will ultimately lead us to ending our dependence on foreign oil
Rocky
As for why oil is more expensive now than under Bill Clinton's watch, well the answer is quite simple: dollar is worth less. Gold, silver and uranium have gone up just as much, and nobody has yet accused either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush of accpeting contributions from gold, silver and uranium companies. Clinton administration's dollar policy was run by Goldman-Sachs alums, so it was a strong-dollar policy to benefit the financial industry; hence lower oil and mineral prices. W's first 4 years had manufacturing captains run the dollar policy, so it was lip service to strong-dollar while debasing dollar whenever possible in the hopes of preserving American manufacturing jobs. Now Goldman-Sachs alums are back in charge, and we shall see how successful they are at bringing back the strong dollar, and lower oil and mineral prices, in order to boost wall street bonuses.
What happened to the billions we have dumped into alternative vehicles during the 1990s? The automakers were given a couple billion to come up with high mileage vehicles. I don't see much difference in mileage over the last 20 years. We are giving billions in subsidy to ADM and Verasun to build ethanol plants. We did that during the last big gas crisis in the 1970s and early 1980s. ninety out of 100 of those ethanol plants we paid to build are now scrap metal. The ones being built now are not capable of making ethanol in any practical manner. So we will be stuck subsidizing them until they are scrapped and we try something else. Just further examples of why government needs to butt out and let the private sector come up with alternatives. It has worked in the past and will work in the future. If government does not tie the hands of industry. Today there are more roadblocks to innovation than any time in our history. Just try to build a new refinery. All attempts in CA have been blocked since the early 1970s. Are you following the wind generation industry. They are getting blocked by the environmentalists. Or the folks that think they are not aesthetically pleasing on the landscape. How about Hawaii? They have wonderful geothermal conditions. They are blocked by those that think it is not pleasing to the volcano gods. We could use geothermal to a greater extent in CA. It is on land controlled by the Feds that will not allow any development of that nature. Government is not the answer to our energy problems. They are a detriment to alternatives being developed. ANY politician that says otherwise is pulling the wool over the eyes of the people.
I think brightness would acknowledge that those billions given to the automobile industry has grown some fruit ?
I've seen with my own eyes over the last 15-20 years alternative energy prjoects like fuel injection systems capable of running on Ethanol developed at Delphi/GM. My father worked with engineers getting these projects launched. In the early-mid 90's I think it was 93 or 94' dad came home and told me waking me up for school that they started up a Corvette, running on Ethanol. If you could of seen the look on his face it was like he was so proud to be a part of that project. My father as a job setter was responsible for setting up lines and setting up new ones with new "state of the art" machinery. He was very good with machinery, thus he was asked to help on the new
Multec- 2 project by plant management and the engineers requested his assistance. They did experience some problems with Ethanol as it was a corrosive to the early injectors. They had to find other materials to prevent that from happening which later they were successful. My father also in the mid 90's worked on another project called Delphi's Direct Injection System. This system would of found its way into GM, cars earlier than now but GM, management decided to wait on using this technology. I never found out why they delayed ? Perhaps they were worried about potential unknown problems with the system ? So the Direct Injection System fixin' to be launched in the 08' CTS is quite old from a developement standpoint as you can see. I at my place of employment have spoken with engineers that graduated from Texas Tech, that have worked on hydrogen technology and their class project was getting a hydrogen car to run. This was over 4 years ago. They admitted they see this technology feasible and believe if they can get the infrastructure to support it that hydrogen will see the light of day sometime by the end of the decade. Well we have seen in recent news hydrogen cars coming from BMW I think in 2009 and Honda, has been working very hard at coming up with a similar car by the turn of the decade.
So to answer your question gagrice, I don't think the money was a total waste. GM, I know will have a hydrogen ready for market sometime around the turn of the decade or shortly their after. I think it's very important to keep pumping R&D money into university's, car company's, and alternative energy company's that want to manufactor not just Ethanol, but bio-diesel, electric battery's, plug-in hybrids, etc, etc.
I'm confident I will see a bio-diesel Duramax diesel engine within' a decade. We will progress as a nation and society because that is what america is all about. Electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be among us in the not so distant future.
brightness, you know more about "economics" than I do. The Goldman-Sachs, philosophy is talking over my head at the momment but I kind of understand what you mean. I do believe a strong dollar is in our best interest as Clinton, proved. However a strong dollar has its weakness's mainly when competing with country's like Japan and China, that manipulate their currency and can under cut american business. Currency Manipulation in the automobile industry is costing GM, Ford, Chrysler, $3-12k in profit advantages that the Japanese enjoy. So having a strong dollar allows consumers to buy more with using less as far as buying asian imports go's but the net effect results in american business unable to match the competition in prices and thus will have to charge more money to get the same profit margin as the Japanese business. The only fix is a tariff or alternative. Perhaps you having knowledge know of another way to solve this unfair disadvantage for american business ????? The bottom line is company's like GM, will have to off-shore everything or go out of business. There is no-way to save domestic business wanting to build products here and stay in business with foreign competition under cutting them. So in short it's good for the consumer, but not for the business that wants to stay home unless he has a product nobody else builds or his competitor is still in the states. As soon as one leaves the other better follow. :sick:
Rocky
$80/barrel oil would make a lot of alternatives financially attractive. The problem is that it's not like flipping a switch. The transition takes years if not decades. What if during this time oil goes back to $40/barrel, do you stop developing the alternatives and re-start next time prices are high? What if oil doesn't stop at $80/barrel but goes above $100? There is no way any transition can be made prior to the economic impact being felt. So if you entertain the idea that this is a possibility prior planning might make some sense. I think about hurricane Katrina and how officials and planners were well aware of the vulnerability that existed. They said things like fortifying the levies would have cost upwards of $200 million. Seems like a bargain now.
Rocky
I'm afraid I can't help you there, buddy. A lot of inventions have been erroneously attribted to government-sponsored research; for example, our generation is raised to believe that NASA brought us the wonders of plastic, nylon and velcro. Apparently the public school curriculum setters think we are too dumb to realize that Henry Ford was making plastic car uphostery and dent-resistent panels as early as the 1930's, that the DuPont company was selling Nylon as early as the 1920's; and the Swiss engineer had already invented velcro in the 1940's . . . all long before NASA existed. I'm not aware of any worthwhile invention coming from the billions of federal money spent on researching alternative fuel. Gasoline engines can run on ethanol just fine; some German tank crews ran their tanks on high-concentrate vodka distill in a pinch as early as WWII. Ethanol is just a poor fuel in terms of energy per volume because the fuel is already partially oxygenated. Making ethanol from corn instead of potato (vodka being from potato) is all the more inefficient. Considering the huge amount of petroleum products that we pumpt into the ground in order to grow corn, ethanol will porbably always be more expensive than making gasoline from coal. So the whole ethanol fuel thing is a huge boondongle . . . should be obvious as the farmers don't even power their equipment with ethanol, but use gasoline and diesel instead.
The very question "those billions given to the automobile industry has grown some fruit?" illustrates the problem with government spending. Would you give me even $1000 for some fruits, let's say a few lemons? Certainly would not be any better if I demand that $1000 from you for a few lemons while holding a gun to your head, right? Why is suddenly wonderful if I'm dressed in the robes of a bureacrat while holding the gun and making that demand? Absent a free marke, the government does not know the price for everything is. Price is how a civilized society decide priorities of human endeavor. A few lemons for a $1 is great: good source of vitamin C and may help perk up flavor on fish and shrimps; However, at $1000 for a few lemons, it's a terrible deal for anyone who is forced to buy it. With government spending, that's what taxpayers, you and I, are forced to buy.
Only to the faithfuls who have made the quantum leap of faith that the Goverment is Omniscient and God-like. How would anyone know that $200 million should have been spent on the lower 9th ward instead of Lake Punchotrane? or instead of Gulfport, Missisipi? or Florida Pan-handle? or Tampa? or the Keys? or the Florida east coast, where the highest number of hurricanes hit every year? or the Georgia coast? or the Carolina outer shores, where the highest frequency of massive property damage take place? What about the Virginia coast and the nation's capital near Chesapeake bay? Delaware and NJ are not immune to hurricane either. NY, Long Island, especially the Hamptons, are known for hurricane damages. The city of Providence, RI, was completely washed out by hurricane flooding at least once in the 20th century. Cape Cod is a hurricane magnet too, so is the "north shore" of massachusettes bay. Coastal NH had major flooding as recently as early 2006. That's just the list for east coast, east of New Orleans alone. If you add all these proposed projects up, at $200 million for every 10 miles of levee, we'd be faced with a bill of trillions of dollars . . . and still leaving out Texas coast and the entire west coast, Alaska and Hawaii vunerable.
Then there's the issue of if the levee is fortified to withstand the Category-3 hurricane like this particular hurricane, as one that can withstand all Cat-5 is theoretically impossible as Cat-5 is a catch-all with no upper limit (a Cat5-ready levee is only "proof" for Cat-4 and a little more), how do we know the very existence of levee weight does not weaken the wetland buffer and foundation even further and make the whole area even more vulnerable to all hurricanes that are greater? That's more or less what happened: the levee itself weakened the local water system.
On top of that, the existing levee was designed, engineered, and built to be able to withstand Cat-3 hurricanes flooding. Apparently, it failed to live up to the spec in rea life. What guarantee is there that a government stamp of approval will amount to any real guarantee after another $200million is fleeced from the taxpayers? There is none, just like last time.
That's why anyone who believes that $200 million would have solved the problem would have to have made the quantum leap of faith in believing that the government is God.
Likewise, the government has no clue what alternative fuel technology will actually be the one that brings salvation. Investment by government in that area will only waste taxpayer money and crowd out private funding. You asked how the private market would cope with price fluctuations; well, that's what futures and options markets are for. Mines, oil companies and farmers engage in those markets all the time. If I sit on a technology that reliably produce oil for $80/bbl, I can forward sell options on them with strike-price above $80 even if the current oil price is $40. If there is real fear that oil price will be over $80, I should be able to make very good profits; thereby help me do more private research to lower my cost point. If there is no real reason to believe that oil price will go over $80, why should the taxpayers fund a boondongle guaranteeing $80/bbl price to begin with?
When you spend your own money, you care about the quality you get and the price you pay;
When someone spends his own money for your benefit, he only cares about the price he pays but not the quality you get;
When someone else spends your money for his own benefit, he only cares only about the quality he gets but not the price he pays with your money;
When someone spends your money for a third person's benefit, he cares about neither the quality nor the price. That, my friend, is government spending :-)
Are there any services that the government provides that you find worthwhile?
Are there any services that the government provides that you find worthwhile?
No, not really. If you are implying that the military can ensure oil supply, that probably is untrue. Iran has been our avowed enemy for nearly three decades, yet Iran still sells oil to the West, sometimes despite our own embargoes. We have a massive military presence in the middleast from 2002 to 2005; that did not stop oil price from rising. It seems to me that the government can't provide much even if it honestly tries to. Kinda makes sense: people do what they do for economic reasons. There is really no reason why government should be able to make things work more efficiently than what a free market can do already. If there were no fiat paper money; i.e. US dollars were still based on gold, oil price would have gradually trended down these past 70 years, through all the so-called oil crises. They were really dollar crises, caused by, you guessed it, the government ("mismanagement" is redunant).
I'm not advocating that we use the military to ensure a supply of oil. I'm merely stating that we do and there is a fairly large price tag involved. Let's stop this. What might that do to the price of oil? If the price goes up either by moving away from a dollar based system or terrorist threats that's fine with me. It accomplishes the same objective as a fuel tax.
Why would the price of oil have trended down over the past 70 years? Since when has increased demand resulted in lower prices in a free market system. Actually I consider oil to be incredibly cheap. Its hard to imagine it could cost much less.
So the government provides no worthwhile services. If corporations colluded to fix a price in order to maximize their profits how would you deal with this? Since there's no government there are also no laws or rules so these same corporations could use their resources and any means possible to block competition. In your world the person or group with the most money would now be the ultimate authority, i.e. government. The only difference is that they wouldn't have to answer to anyone. It would become a class system and your only hope was that you were born lucky.
Everything you blame the government for could just as easily be blamed on corporations and infuential special interests pulling the strings. Get rid of the government and these same groups are still calling the shots, you've just eliminate the pretense.
I'm not an advocate of big government but I do believe its necessary. Can you cite a prosperous society that operated without a government?
Why would the price of oil have trended down over the past 70 years? Since when has increased demand resulted in lower prices in a free market system.
In the decade before gold price became frozen by government ban and subsequently manipulated, oil price went from $3.5/bbl in 1920 to $1/bbl in 1930. That decade saw the fastest growth rate in gasoline consumption as the auto industry exploded. What gives? demand ran up but so did supply. Even in the currently heavily manipulated gold terms, oil still has not recovered to its 1920 price of 1/5.7Oz of gold; with gold price at $660, oil price should be $116/bbl. However, to make it comparable to 1930 gold price, oil price should be $33/bbl. That's how rapidly oil price decreased from 1920 to 1930 in gold terms, at a time of rapid gasoline consumption increase.
So the government provides no worthwhile services. If corporations colluded . . .
What makes anyone think the government is not in the business of helping corporations to collude? Collusions in free markets are ineffective largely because the threat of new entrants taking business away from colluders. The government however is the perfect instrument for preventing new entrants from ever taking place. That's why we have not seen a major oil company being founded ever since Oxy in the 1950's. Regulations, even environmental ones, make for the perfect leg breakers for entrenched interest. BTW, even the western majors face that problem in places like Russia, where Sakhalin II just saw Shell mugged by the Russian government using environmentalists as leg breakers.
Everything you blame the government for could just as easily be blamed on corporations and infuential special interests pulling the strings. Get rid of the government and these same groups are still calling the shots, you've just eliminate the pretense.
Since government does not exist as a real person, every action that entity undertakes is actually the action of individuals running it. And since every single individual real person has real private personal interest, is there any wonder government only exists as a tool of the string-pullers? Reduce government power would simply reduce the coercive power of those string pullers. You have actually introduced a very apt analogy when using the phrase "pulling the strings." "Government" is really a puppet of the rich and powerful. It legitimizes the use of violence by the string pullers.
I'm not an advocate of big government
But you are advocating bigger government. Can you cite any example of bigger government leading to sustainable prosperity?
let's see, there is big government that succeeded in making a worker's paradise...USSR..but wait, they dissolved.
Then, there is Cuba..with an economy dependent on Soviet handouts...and boy is their economy crap...all live in poverty...but at least most are equally poor.
How about big government in China...you can't get any bigger than that....but wait...they had workers paradise also, but had to import food every year, until big brother opened up his tight grip, and opened economy to capitalism ....now it is fastest growing....
Nope..sorry, cannot think of a truly sustainable prosperous big government country...at least not yet....
I also agree on the price of oil. Oil hit $9 per barrel as recently as 1998. If the market was free of government influences from all the countries selling oil, it would probably settle in about $30 per barrel in todays USD. There is still plenty of oil for the time being to supply the market. What it will be in 20-40 years is anyones guess. It would be good to have viable alternatives. Not government sponsored corporate welfare as in the current ethanol waste.
So that tells me either you don't consider the US government to be big or you don't think this is a prosperous country. What would be a good yardstick for measuring the size of government? I'd say that tax revenues should work. I would be very surprised if there is another country on the planet with a larger federal budget than ours. You might say that's only because we have the biggest, most prosperous economy. Well that would somewhat contradict your position because the two shouldn't go together. As far as China is concerned they didn't become more prosperous by reducing the size of their government. They simply adopted different market driven economic policies and seem to pretty effective at government driven currency manipulation. It is still a very government dominated society and yes, that economy is rapidly growing.
Again, I'm not advocating bigger government. My suggestion does not create any new government programs or bureaucracies. There is no reason that increasing gas taxes and decreasing income taxes should increase the size of government. As far as the point that revenue neutrality is impossible and any change in taxes increases the size of government, well that's something that we'll just have to disagree on. Actually consumption taxes should be easier and less costly to collect so it could potentially reduce the size of government. If this country were to become energy self sufficient then we could turn our back on the Middle East, again allowing the government to become smaller. BTW, a fuel tax is far more inline with how the founding fathers funded the government. There were no "progressive" income taxes. Revenue was collected through taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco.
When someone mentions higher fuel taxes its amazing how many people are anti-government intervention. Well that point is invalid since the government is already intervening by using our military, which is funded by our taxes. So the real question is that given government intervention is a reality what is the most effective approach for achieving the objective? IMO, the objective in this case is a secure, stable supply of energy. Regardless, how many of these people will maintain their hands-off position if a disruption in our oil supply causes our economy to collapse? We very well may get to find out.
While I understand and actually agree with the intent/intentions behind the recommendation/s, my take is that it will only cause the price/cost) (per mile driven) to go up while achieving no where near the original intentions. ;(
The speed limit of 65 mph will almost guarantee mediocre to poor cars and technology.
For example, I have a so called "under" powered car that can cruise all day/night at 100 plus mph, yet at 65 mph will get inxs of 53 mpg. The regulators have gone so far as to ban it!! Indeed 5 states have new car bans on imported DIESEL cars. Imported Gas Guzzlers are conversely most welcomed into the country!!???? We don't need new regulations, we just need cars on the market not banned for actually getting HIGHER FUEL mileage.
One only need look at Japan and Europe where all those things have been in place for a VERY long time. (high fuel prices in both areas and LOW speed limits in Japan) YET they import upwards of 85/95% repectively of their oil!!!??
Additionally by definition; if DOMESTIC oil production is all but prohibited and regulated into almost low profitability (% wise) one has to IMPORT. Don't want to import? Why all but close DOMESTIC production!!??
What would signal that we are so called serious? When alternative fuels, for example: such as bio diesel farmed domestically from algae, actually sell for cheaper than unleaded regular/premium.(adjusted for inflation and all that yada yada ) So that I am not vague, if unleaded regular TODAY sells for $2.57 per gal, diesel or bio diesel would sell for $2.27 per gal.
On the diesel side the jetta TDI is just starting to really break in at 60,000 miles. Since I plan to keep a Honda Civic for three timing belt changes (105,000 miles each t/b/)