Some states want to punish fuel-efficient car drivers!

Why would I say goodbye to my pickup which has a 5.7 liter engine?
I can afford the price of gasoline even if a large tax were to be added.
Please do not assume that everyone is willing to suffer driving an
underpowered, small size automobile to save a few bucks
(or to appease a few overzealous environmentalists).
Charging by the mile is the only fair way to tax.

 

Make all roads toll roads?

 

Why not? It's their fault.

"Spending" isn't bad. "Deficit" spending, "trickle down economics"
are bad.

It was the Bush gang that decided that it was "bad" to run a surplus
for a while, "bad" to save for a "rainy day". It was the Bush gang
that cut taxes when the enonomy was already going strong (just as
counter-productive as tax increases when the economy needs
stimulation), thus over-heating the economy and leading to the
inevitable hard fall.

This is Macro Economics 101. They blew it.

 

As someone who runs a fleet including a 6.75 litre Bentley Turbo, a 6.7
litre V10 Excursion, a 7.2 Litre Jensen Interceptor III and whos
personal cars include a turbocharged V8 Range Rover (which averages
around 9 MPUSG) I have to agree that fuel prices, if you can afford
them, are irrelevant and will not change your choice of car.
However, I'm also involved closely with the UK secondhand Motor Trade
and when the fuel prices in the UK hit £1.15 UKP / Litre (£5.00 per USG)
combined with a perceived hike in road fund licence on large engined
cars - a lot of the general public believed erroneously that anything
with an engine larger than around 2.0 was going to cost £400 a year in
tax before turning a wheel - the value of anything with a large engine
dropped horrendously. I bought a Range Rover 4.6 around April for £1200,
the garage I bought it from had given £4000 for it as P/X in February
quite reasonably as it had a retail value Jan '08 of £5000. By April it
was almost impossible to sell because nobody knew what it was worth and
buyers of large cars has virtually disappeared in the UK even though the
fuel prices have dropped again.



--
Pete M - OMF#9

BMW 325i SE Touring
Range Rover V8 Turbo
Renault 30 TX Auto

"Wait! We can't stop here, this is Bat Country"

 

Please note that Bush is an idiot and not necessarily representative
of conservative economic philosophy. Do not claim all conservative
economics is worthless just because one man decided to give all your
tax dollars to his friends instead of using it wisely.

Yes, well, I don't think anyone in the White House was thinking any
farther ahead than his own paycheck.
--scott

 

Let's see....and you spend time on the Usenet.

Uh-huh.

Or by "runs a fleet" do you mean "washes the boss's cars"?

 

Weekly in one of the Sydney, Australia newpapers there is an entire page of
letters compiled by a Mechanical Engineer of people asking about problems
with cars. Without fail every week its Ford, Holden ( GM) with rare mentions
of Japanese/Korean/European. I,m sure every brand car has the odd
manufacturing problem but most of the faults reported in this column are
design defects. Blokes with 3-4 failed differentials in 2 years, Brake hoses
bursting, porous engine castings that spout oil. Thats probably one reason
you see more Asian cars.

 

Incorrect. You use the system when you are no longer full of crap.

Jeff

 

But the state wants money for roads and highways. They get through fuel
sales, and if therre are no fuel sales then there are no funds for roads an
dhighways, yet there are still cars rolling upon them.



We should not be creating the idea in people's

That strategy only collects from those vehicles, there are lots of other
vehicles that do not pay their way.

No. It's false to look at it as punishment. It is not punishment to pay for
roads and highways that you use, regardless of how you use them.

I too have been a victim of conservation that worked so well as to cause a
raise in rates -- water rates, the same as in your example. The water
company said to the regulators, "the people are saving so much water that we
don't make any money at this rate, so we need to raise it." The regulators
signed off.

That scenario is different than the road tax issue that you are talking
about. In the road tax, people are still using the roads via a means that
does not generate the revenue needed to build and maintain them, therefore
they are using the roads for free. In the water issue, we are using water
and paying for it.

 

Right.

There's a base cost for having the infrastructure to maintain the
roads--the state must have equipment and people in place. Then there's
the incremental cost, which is how hard the roads are used. That's a
function of vehicle miles and weight.

Question: is this like education, where it's to the benefit of EVERY
citizen of the state that the roads are there and maintained? If so,
then the base cost should be spread out among ALL citizens, in the form
of a tax. Then the incremental cost can be paid for with fuel taxes or
similar.

 

Let's be clear, here. If *you* were *interested* in this, you would
have joined a thread discussing OR's plan 2 years or more ago when
it was first discussed. Or you would have posted to a more appropriate
newsgroup.

And you have no *plan*, you just have ill-formed opinions based
upon reading a few articles in the popular press (rather than professional
journals.)

I don't always agree with Jeff, but so far I'm on board with his criticism.

FloydR

 

Yet he was re-elected after this was apparent. Shame on those who
voted for him the second time.

Of course not worthless. What true conservative would condone such
reckless deficit spending?

It's just amazing how fucked our leadership has been. Mind-boggling
how Bush's policies were defended by the ignorant and the
short-sighted.

Well, that's just it, isn't it? "Peddle to the metal, until it's time
to stomp on the brakes." And those few of us who can *think* can only
watch in horror as it unfolds.

 

I watched both the Republican and Democratic primaries pretty carefully,
and the ONLY person running who made any statement about getting the
deficit under control and paying down the debt was Al Sharpton.

When Al Sharpton starts making more sense than anyone else on the ballot,
you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.
--scott

 

When Al Sharpton starts making more sense than anyone else on the ballot,

ROTFLMAO!!!

 

True, but then when the government goes bankrupt the welfare state
system that Al loves so much will go away also. Those who refuse to
work have the most to lose when the government goes away.

 

Jeff

Yes you're right - Timing is everything!

IYM