The California state surplus is now $68 Billion. But the gas tax will still RISE by three more cents a gallon.

[MamboDervish]

Your premise for gas prices being too [damned] cheap is that we use to much of it on

activities of which you disapprove:

• Driving SUVs instead of economy cars,
• Lawnmowers instead of push mowers,
• Warming up cars on cold winter days,
• Using their air conditioners,
• Using snow blowers instead of hand shoveling the snow,
• Using leaf blowers instead of manual raking,
• Recreational use: boats, RVs, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, jet skis

No - what I disapprove of is the obscene over use of fossil fuels - period. It has nothing to do with "activities of which" I "disapprove".

You believe gas prices are too [damned] cheap and should be raised (and raised to the point of pain for all) - not for economic reasons, but for purely punitive reasons.

Wrong again - and I state exactly why in the text. How did you miss that?

You believe gas prices should be higher - via massive government tax increases on gas - to PUNISH Americans and FORCE them into behaving in a manner you think we ought to behave.

The fool persists in their folly. As I've stated - to anyone with a modicum of English comprehension - is that we should be paying the real costs, not the subsidized bullshit cost at the pump, which effectively hides what it's going to cost in healthcare, in cleanup, and in wear and tear on our crumbling infrastructure, so much of which was expressly built FOR the use of fossil fuels. That's what the gas tax was alleged to be used for.

And to justify this authoritarian punishment, you cite "pollution" as your justification - when in fact the only "pollution" here is the totality of your argument. To hell with you and your authoritarian BS. You want to feel pain? Take a wad of hundred dollar bills and shove them where the sun don't shine to plug your own malodorous emissions.

Now you're boring me.

I haven't had the displeasure of reading such a putrid pile of devilish, dogmatic in some time. That was one seriously disturbing screed there. Seriously disturbing...

Only to the seriously disturbed. Your feeble distortion of the points in my post would not even be missed by someone who failed their ESL courses.

If I had to guess, I might suspect you're someone who drives a big gas guzzler, tows his gas burning toys on a trailer with it, and just doesn't give a shit about any other human being on the planet, including his own prodigy, more than he cares about his own comfort and recreation . . . .
OR . . .
. . . perhaps someone with a large personal interest in the profits of the fossil fuel industries.
Or maybe both.
But being a kind natured soul myself, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and just assume you've been hornswoggled by the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry, as are many gluttonous Americans.

 

[Brack]

California voters had a chance to vote to repeal the state's gas tax with proposition 6, but California voters rejected that proposition back in 2018. Link

 

[Ug make hammer]

You mean you don't know ?!!? So many reasons, mostly stemming from the first principle that gas, being too cheap, leads to overusing it to an obscene degree.

Gas taxes are supposed to pay for infrastructure projects - so why do we need hundreds of billions of dollar$ in infrastructure work? Because gas taxes are far too low, and have been for decades. Why is gas so cheap? Because we subsidize it with federal tax money. Why do we do that? Because petroleum industry lobbyists own our elected representatives.

Fossil fuels, including gas, pollute. They pollute the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. They pollute in their extraction, in their refinement, in their transportation, in their storage, and most of all, in their use. That pollution costs all of us in hidden and incalculable ways. It costs us many billions in cleanup costs, and many, many billions in healthcare costs, because pollution exposure poisons us all.

Despite having the technology for cleaner and more efficient transportation, Americans are driving more and more SUVs. They are buying and driving vehicles that get 15-20 MPG when plenty of vehicles are available that get twice that - 30-40 MPG. Why? Because gas is too damned cheap. Historically, the record shows that when gas prices are higher, economy cars sell much better.

Americans piss away gas for no other reason than their personal comfort. Why? Because gas is too damned cheap. Americans will sit in their cars idling their engines to keep the A/C running when it isn't really needed, or they'll start their cars and idle for 10 or 15 minutes before they climb in on a frosty morning, just because putting their ass in a cold seat for the 5 minutes it takes to warm up is too much of a discomfort.

Americans are so lazy, they'll use a gas powered lawn mower when they could use a push mower, they'll use a gas powered snowblower when they could be shoveling, and they'll use a gas powered leaf blower when they could easily rake their lawns. Why? Because the price of gas is too damned cheap!

Americans don't think twice about burning gas recreationally! They race through snowy woods on snowmobiles, they tear up trails on dirt bikes, and the do donuts on jet skis, polluting fresh water lakes. And that's not even including just recreational driving and boating. Why do they do it? Because the price of gas is too damned cheap! There would be a lot less of all of this going on if gas were $10 a gallon. It's long past time we started paying for the real price of gas. The price that covers the infrastructure, the price that covers the healthcare costs, and the price that covers the cleanup.

Quite a rant there. I will note that a factor in people choosing SUV's is potholes in their local roads, which aren't funded by gas tax but mostly by land taxes. But most of the advantage is blown out if they choose road tires (which use less petrol) but don't stand up to bad potholes any better than the tires on an economy car. The tires are a bit bigger but they have more weight on each of them.

Most "truck" or SUV owners just feel bigger and more important (as people) when they're embodied in their vehicle. Advertisers play on this, particularly the safety aspect (which sells particularly to women concerned about their children) and the dream of spending a week in the wilderness (which only appeals to men). Actually it varies between one and another SUV since they roll over more easily at high speed (ie road accidents) and are mostly better in frontal collisions (bigger engine between the occupants and the target.)

SUV's themselves should attract a tax, because of the higher fuel usage, but also because they are dangerous to other road users. Rural people or builders who might actually need one, could claim the tax back as part of their business expenses. But the tradeoff between occupant safety and everyone else's safety is a classic example of externality. It should be taxed.

 

[Ug make hammer]

You believe gas prices are too [damned] cheap and should be raised (and raised to the point of pain for all) - not for economic reasons, but for purely punitive reasons. You believe gas prices should be higher - via massive government tax increases on gas - to PUNISH Americans and FORCE them into behaving in a manner you think we ought to behave.

It's neither punishment nor force. It's a disincentive like all taxes are whether intentionally or not.

Since when did conservatives abandon the concept "User Pays"? Road users should be paying to maintain roads and build new ones as necessary. Not the Federal government out of income taxes or borrowing.

Why should a graphic designer who works from home, or occasionally visits the office on their bicycle, pay for the damage done to roads by lorries and urban assault vehicles oops I mean SUV's? They will end up paying their fair share anyway, due to products in the shop or products delivered by van, being more expensive. But so will everyone else, while people who clog the roads creating demand for new roads, will pay the extra. Surely that is more fair?

 

[Ug make hammer]

As of this posting:

View attachment 67388428

State of California Debt Clock

usdebtclock.org

The state carries debt, so what? I was talking about the balance of Federal taxes and spending, in which California is the state most near to balance.

Red states tend to be subsidized, while the few states which pay more than they get, tend to be Blue. So I guess you're trying to distract from that ...

Actually I don't mind. Politics aside I believe in redistribution of income. I'd just like it if the supplicant states would just show a bit of gratitude instead of constantly bitching about Federal over-reach.

 

[bluesmoke]

California is not a country. So your measurement is a false one.

I didn't say CA was a country. The BEA, Bureau of Economic Analysis, uses GDP by State as a comprehensive measure of the economies of each state and the District of Columbia. As a comparison by state, CA would be #1. The measurement is not false, and the comparison is valid.