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Should congress pass a law subsidizing gas prices until the Ukraine issue calms down?

Should congress pass a law subsidizing gas prices until the Ukraine issue calms down?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 12.0%

  • No

    Votes: 40 80.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 4 8.0%
  • Total voters
    50
Greenbeard said:
Don't we already do enough to subsidize the lifestyles of those who choose to live way out in the boonies and drive gas guzzlers?
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Yep, we get the bulk of public transit subsidies now. ;)
 
BirdinHand said:
Yeah, who cares if people are choosing between groceries and gas to drive to and from work. Suck it up for the grandkids.
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Well if Grandma would just die from Covid then there would be less energy used and people would not have had to wear masks
 
Gatsby said:
If it's means-tested (i.e. their payment is connected to keeping their income low), then yes, I think it would. If it's just a more-or-less universal payment, I don't think so.

But I don't really see the need for another universal relief payment right now, with the economy running hot and inflation running high. Seems counterproductive to me. I think the correct response to high gas prices is to do nothing.

If we had ongoing universal payments for everyone like SS retirement (e.g. a UBI) I think you are right that the long-term effect would be for people to work fewer hours.

One-time economic relief payments don't typically have that effect if they are structured properly, to my knowledge.
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Hmm… don’t those two (bolded above) assertions contradict each other?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Hmm… don’t those two (bolded above) assertions contradict each other?
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I think the main reason one-time universal relief payments don't typically reduce working hours, but ongoing UBI would, is that people can't rely on the one-time payment for ongoing lifestyle changes. And also that the one-time relief payments typically happen during bad economic times (unlike what we have now) where people want to hunker down and protect what they have.

I'm actually not sure if that would still be true if we had a one-time economic relief payment during a high-inflation / low-unemployment economy like we have now. It would be fairly unprecedented...which is one reason I'm skeptical about the idea.
 
BirdinHand said:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure every public transit system is subsidized. Is there a single one that actually pays for itself with ridership fees?
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AMTRAK is required by law to do so, yet it has never done so.

Eliminate Funding for Amtrak and the Essential Air Service Program | Congressional Budget Office

Background The federal government subsidizes intercity travel in various ways. For example, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation—or Amtrak—received appropriations of about $1.5 billion in 2017 and $1.9 billion in 2018 to subsidize intercity passenger rail services. The 2018 figure...
www.cbo.gov www.cbo.gov
 
tacomancer said:
Should congress pass a law subsidizing gas prices until the Ukraine issue calms down?
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How about states remove their gas taxes? And, since it's actually a very regressive tax that puts significant hardship on the poor, just leave it gone?
 
Fishking said:
How about states remove their gas taxes? And, since it's actually a very regressive tax that puts significant hardship on the poor, just leave it gone?
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Other taxes would need to be raised for road maintenance, but I would be fine with putting that into a progressive income tax structure.
 
tacomancer said:
Other taxes would need to be raised for road maintenance, but I would be fine with putting that into a progressive income tax structure.
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Many seem to be fine with the idea of raising taxes on others (typically described as “the rich” or “corporations”), yet dislike the idea of flat taxes which *gasp* even they must pay.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Many seem to be fine with the idea of raising taxes on others (typically described as “the rich” or “corporations”), yet dislike the idea of flat taxes which *gasp* even they must pay.
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I was proposing an alternative to gas taxes is all. I don't care as long as the roads are maintained.
 
tacomancer said:
I was proposing an alternative to gas taxes is all. I don't care as long as the roads are maintained.
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Many roads are paid for and maintained at a local/county level and would not be impacted.

A temporary suspension of consumer gas taxes would have very minimal impact on road maintenance
 
tacomancer said:
I was proposing an alternative to gas taxes is all. I don't care as long as the roads are maintained.
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User fees are a perfectly reasonable form of taxation, and probably should have been raised to keep pace with inflation.

The idea seems to be to mask the impact of Biden’s fossil fuel policy changes “temporarily” (meaning until after the midterm elections?). The DNC/MSM spin machine is busy trying to blame the rise in US pump prices on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine - totally ignoring their steady rise before that.
 
BirdinHand said:
Why is the consumer always the one asked to make "cuts"?
Why can't government cut back THEIR spending and give Americans back some of THEIR money by cutting the gas tax?
NO to a subsidy that equates to MORE government spending.
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I don't think this evidences an understanding of our system.

Government spending goes to private citizens in the form of wages or to businesses as revenue.
Republicans passed in their only legislative accomplishment, huge tax cuts for the rich/corporations.
Why is that? Where was your outrage then and why do you still support them when they are the worst at this?

As for cutting government spending back, that gets felt by everyone the community, again subsidized by the average worker who sees a drop in road maintenance and development or whatever else that gas tax is used for.

Don't fall for the Republican propaganda that it's you vs government. They win every time you fall for that.
 
BlueTex said:
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Yep, but that requires playing careful games with the dates used - right before adding $1.9T in additional 2021 spending (on 3/11/2021) for the American Rescue Plan. It also cheats by cleverly ignoring the fact that CRs are still in effect for large portions of the FY2022 appropriation bills.
 
Mach said:
I don't think this evidences an understanding of our system.

Government spending goes to private citizens in the form of wages or to businesses as revenue.
Republicans passed in their only legislative accomplishment, huge tax cuts for the rich/corporations.
Why is that? Where was your outrage then and why do you still support them when they are the worst at this?

As for cutting government spending back, that gets felt by everyone the community, again subsidized by the average worker who sees a drop in road maintenance and development or whatever else that gas tax is used for.

Don't fall for the Republican propaganda that it's you vs government. They win every time you fall for that.
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A 1% cut to budgets for a short period of time while prices are so high isn’t asking too much.

There are countless projects and spending across the entire US which could be postponed or cancelled.

And let’s face it - there’s plenty of padding in government contracts that can be better negotiated that could achieve the same exact end result without any impact to residents.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
User fees are a perfectly reasonable form of taxation, and probably should have been raised to keep pace with inflation.
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I am good with either arrangement, as long as roads are maintained.
 
BirdinHand said:
Yeah, who cares if people are choosing between groceries and gas to drive to and from work. Suck it up for the grandkids.
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That's BS. There is no choice between groceries and saving on gas by changing driving habits.

We will know that gas prices are too high for people when they stop driving like they are at the racetrack.

Even if a war had not inflated gas prices, we should tax 'em up that high to make everyone conserve. Do our part to combat the climate crisis. And yes, use some of that to subsidize the low income people who need help for transportation between their 5 part time on-call jobs.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Are you kidding me? Your answer amounts to ‘no, but yes’.
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If only the world were so simple.

There is nothing wrong with saying yes to a subsidy for low income people but no to a general one which would also go to gas-wasters who seem to have plenty of money to burn on frivolous jack-rabbit starts and races up to the next red light.

When we see everybody saving gas with moderate starts and coasting to a visible red light ahead, instead of racing everybody else up to it, jockeying for position, then we will know that high gas prices have become a real concern for the mass public.
 
Peacenik said:
That's BS. There is no choice between groceries and saving on gas by changing driving habits.

We will know that gas prices are too high for people when they stop driving like they are at the racetrack.

Even if a war had not inflated gas prices, we should tax 'em up that high to make everyone conserve. Do our part to combat the climate crisis. And yes, use some of that to subsidize the low income people who need help for transportation between their 5 part time on-call jobs.
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This doesn’t even make sense.

Yes - a $.40+ cent a gallon increase in gas prices can very well mean the difference between groceries for a family that doesn’t have expendable income.

I’m sorry that you are unable to appreciate that significant impact to people’s budgets. How do people working in place A and living in place B “change driving habits”? Should they not work?

Elitist thinking right there
 
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