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Report Your Local Gas Prices Here (retired discussion, please see the new one)
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I am really curious as to where the tax money really goes. The US pays a lot less in gas taxes than other first world areas, but receives disproportionately less benefit. I wonder if it helps broken traffic law enforcement schemes.
A few good quotes in that link:
"These are the same people who bankrupted the global economy, got bailed out by the taxpayers and earned record profits in Q2. Greed has no bounds. Welcome to the inflated cost of speculation in commodities. These people are truly non-contributors. They diminish value in the economy other than their own inflated compensation."
"The best and brightest leave their ivy league schools, head straight to Wall street, and spend their time finding ways to shuffle money or aluminum in circles for personal profit and general harm.
We, as a society, should find ways to actively punish this sort of behavior."
"In times past, 1%-ers and 1/10th%-ers did not act this way with their investments."
Funny, the more they get, the more they take. I wonder how bad it would get if they get another undeserved tax break.
These people don't need tax breaks. They have hordes of tax attorneys that keep their taxes low or non existent. The people most impacted by tax increases are the middle and upper middle class working stiff. All those attorneys and servants in their multiple mansions are tax deductible. All protected by elaborate IRS proof trusts and or non profit charitable corporations.
Why You Should Be Angry About CA’s “Highest Gas Tax in the Country”
To balance the state budget in 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed, pushed for, and eventually signed a law that changed the tax structure for gas taxes with a so-called “fuel swap.” The new tax structure eliminated the sales tax on fuel and raised the excise tax. The purpose of the change was to eliminate funds that were dedicated towards transportation from the gas tax so that the Governor could balance the state budget with fewer cuts elsewhere and no tax increases.
http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/07/01/why-you-should-be-angry-about-the-cas-highe- st-gas-tax-in-the-country/
Notice it is an excise tax meaning it goes into the general fund for whatever they decide.
Come Monday, an extra 3.5 cents will be tacked onto every gallon of gas bought in the Golden State.
San Francisco has among the highest gas prices in the state with a gallon costing, on average, $4.077 as of Friday afternoon, according to the price tracking website. That’s nearly 50 cents more than the national average of $3.514 per gallon of regular gasoline, according to AAA's daily fuel gauge report.
The average driver in California burned 600 gallons of fuel in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, according to data from the California Energy Commission.
By those numbers, the average driver will pay an extra $21 next year under the raised excise tax.
The tax hike – meant to keep California’s sales tax rate at a constant 7.5 percent – will bring the state gasoline excise tax to 39.5 cents per gallon, said Venus Stromberg, spokeswoman for the California Board of Equalization.
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/California-Gas-Tax-Hikes-Goes-Into-Affect-J- uly-1.html
Where does your state gas tax dollars go?
http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/industry-economics/fuel-taxes/ga- soline-tax
Would also be interesting to see a historical gas tax chart. I couldn't find anything about rates (just raw numbers in cents), and state data can really vary.
It WAS a great winter though. At my house we had at least 6" of snow on the ground from Oct 15 to April 15. At one point we were snowed in for three days even with my 4x4!
Sunoco at Lonshore and Rising Sun in NE Philly:
RUG= $3.69
Plus = $3.89
Ultra = $4.01 :sick:
Diesel is $3.99.
Didn't check premium or the ethanol free stuff.
RUG = $3.61
Plus = $3.81
Ultra = $3.91
I decided to defer that experiment for another day.
When you skim the list, you'll note many stations are actually marinas. Ethanol is hard on fiberglass gas tanks but I think it's easier in the long run to redo the tank if you can get to it on your boat without cutting the hull open.
Actually 10% enthanol can be pretty harmless IF it is stored correctly, dispensed correctly and in the right type of engine. The problem is that more often than not, these three criteria are not met. We poor schlumps cannot control what the gas stations do or do not do to their fuel.
The AG lobby is mighty powerful, so they might ram this through. I don't think owners of brand-new cars will have much worry but older cars will.
I wonder if some interesting aftermarket products will spring up to combat the effects of fuel contamination?
Laughing icon:
To keep the politics fair and balanced: the rules for 10% C2H5OH could have been revoked any time during the last 5 years by executive order. ... Right?
>The AG lobby is mighty powerful
I assume that means the Agriculture lobby which is NOT the small farmers involved in membership in the state Farm Bureau group. Instead, that is the Big Business lobby and their BIG money. While the Farm Bureau lobbies, their money is tiddly winks compared to the Big Ag companies money.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
These subsidies to the corn giants have been in effect since the Reagan era. This is nothing new.
We cannot call it "corporate welfare" because corporations aren't people--oh, wait, they are sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whpf4Xs2ww8
With all the inflation caused by using corn to drive cars instead of feed animals if the food inflation were still in the index, that would make many people doubt the benefit of corn fuel is worth the extra food cost.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
23.50 mpg
The ethanol-free tank:
23.52 mpg
In my 2006 civic, I was consistently getting 39-41mpg.
When they switched over to 10% ethanol, it immediately dropped to 35-36mpg.
My commute consists of 2 miles country road(55 speed limit) and 24 miles of 70mph.
Whenever I feel rich and put in the real gas, my mileage goes back up to 39-41mpg.
There is NO "magic blend" that will produce higher mileage by adding MORE ethanol.
I'm not sure if the Shell stations announced ethanol in the tank on the earlier visits, but a year ago the new Shell by I-26 did say ethanol was in the tank.
I don't get the same improved mileage returning from MI with Michigan, state-certified, fuel in the tank. But the added MI fuel is not a majority of tank volume because the trip is shorter and often I fill up in Toledo with Ohio(?) fuel (or does Toledo get Michigan fuel from suppliers there?)
Ohio has resisted any kind of fuel quality testing for decades with the assumption being that poorer quality fuel is sent to Ohio that wouldn't pass MI's testing.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
So, the last tank using ethanol came to 23.87.
That debate aside, in the good old days when the van had lots fewer miles on it, I could hit 26 to 28mpg driving like I'm currently driving. And that was with a canoe on top!
I'm running the AC but otherwise we're just cruising and not pushing too hard. Wish I had a mechanic who could actually dial in it; have to wonder if something just isn't quite "right".
In other news:
Do you get a burning sensation at the gas pump when your car falls well short of the EPA fuel economy estimates? Edmunds.com's Green Car Editor John O'Dell discusses this phenomenon and offers tips on how to get the most out of your car's fuel economy when he appears as this week's guest on "Cars, Trucks and Bucks" on TalkZone.com (http://www.talkzone.com/shows/199/CarsTrucksAndBucks.html).
The show is live from 4-5 pm EDT on Thursday, September 19, and we encourage you to call 888-463-6748 with questions and comments about real-world mileage experiences and what you think of your car's EPA estimates.
I'm reading reports of gas selling for under $3 in parts of South Carolina and it's getting close to that in TN, TX and AZ.
Something got screwy in the log book though. The last tank was a high/normal 23ish mpg. This time we got 29.9, but the written number was 40 miles more than what was on the trip odometer. Sometimes we forget to reset that after every fill though. And I tend to cram a bit more the gas tank than my wife. Or maybe she got a pump like your Shell station that cut you off "early".
Tidester used to have a term for data like this - basically it all evens out over time.