Posted on 05/20/2012 9:26:10 PM PDT by tsowellfan
If we want to reduce fossil fuel consumption, I say, we should raise the price of gasoline to $7 a gallon.
Reason: Today this country burns through 21 million barrels of oil per day, 60 percent of which is imported. Only with some shared economic pain will we ever change our habits.
High gas prices will force us to think before we drive. It will encourage mass transit use, car pooling, and the sale of more fuel-efficient cars.
The auto industry will not suffer because it has learned that it can charge more for cars that are cheaper to build if those cars have a few luxury touches.
Individuals will spend more dollars on gasoline, even factoring in the reduced usage, but American motorists are notoriously inefficient and have traditionally done an awful job of planning their errand runs.
Average families will feel the pain, but, in my view, a move to less-expensive beer and other consumer goods should go a long way toward softening this inconvenience.
Drivers who own gas-guzzling pickup trucks will be motivated to carpool or take mass transit where it’s available.
Because mass transit is not as widely available as it should be, much of the gas price increase would be allocated to improving our railroads and creating more bus lanes.
As for diesel fuel, I would leave it at its current price of $4 a gallon. Yes, that will encourage the sale of diesel vehicles, but despite the hue and cry of environmentalists about all things diesel, those cars today are just as fuel efficient as the gas-burning kind.
Large diesel trucks, of course, must remain because they deliver the majority of the goods we consume.
My proposition is simple enough. Higher fuel prices mean less fuel consumed, and that means cleaner air and reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels.
A tough proposal? Sure. But Americans are a tough people capable of making hard decisions when it comes to spending.
It’s all the gas being released in the District of Corruption by the commie ‘RATS that keeps driving the prices down.
Hasn’t stopped ‘em from driving so much in “Yurop”. The only thing they have fewer of is automatic transmissions.
The avergae for the European Union is $7.60 a gallon.
I read this same drivel in the late 1970s when I was in college. And the editorial reads like it was written by a 6th grader. Amazing that nothing has changed in all these years, and that the idiots on the left are unaware of that.
“Large diesel trucks, of course, must remain because they deliver the majority of the goods we consume.”
I guess the writer does not realize that higher fuel costs will drive up the cost of goods as well.
Democrats always talk about how important it is to have “progressive” taxes, yet they promote pretty much the most regressive tax in this country.
Even with sales tax, more well-off people tend to buy things that are more expensive and thus pay more taxes. My tires cost $80 a piece, and the ones on that Mercedes AMG cost $500 a piece and have to be replaced more often. But with gas tax, it’s the well-off people who are better able to afford brand-new fuel efficient cars, and even buy $40,000 hybrids that are the functional and luxury equivalent of a $20,000 gasoline-powered car.
The poor are stuck with their gas-guzzling clunkers that suck more gas year after year as the engine gets older. The poor family with only an old gas-guzzling family van has to use that for everything, they can’t afford to buy a new 50 mpg car for when dad needs to commute 20 miles to work. In the 20 mpg van, this trip to his $20 an hour job costs him $7.20, and the Democrats want to raise that to $14. Because of the Democrats, he now has to work almost a whole hour of his day just to pay for the gas to get to work and back.
As usual, Democrats are the enemy of the poor while pretending to be their champions.
Um,.. I drive truck because I need a truck.
This person is nut! Higher gas prices will cause pain not just at the pump, but in every area of our lives, to higher food and dry good prices, increased cost of shipping, airlines fares. Everything we touch.
This is either a GOP planted story or a Democrat Party suicide note.
The democrats don’t want him in that van at all going to work. They want him on the bus, the train, his bike...
Social planning should be a fatal occupation.
Is Norman Rockwell still doing Saturday Evening Post covers?
You're an American and you're tough. You should be able to keep kicking for hours on end.
While one is tempted to suspect that "Janus Ludak" is a pseudonym for a stoned Harvard Lampoon wannabe attempting to skyrocket his mental pinball machine score by hitting every Stupid bumper on the table, I am afraid that the fellow just might be real.
It works like this, Mr. Ludak - there is this thing economists term "price elasticity of demand", meaning that certain things for certain people do not become less in demand as the price goes up. Gasoline is one of them. Certain people, contrary to the lofty assumptions of Green idiots, do not actually drive around thoughtlessly in circles for the sheer hell of it, and hence may cut their travel without consequence. I do not mean only truck drivers delivering a load of arugula to the nearest Whole Foods market. They'd be middle class drones far too primitive for the utopian delights of planned economies who just happen to keep the one we actually have, going. Just because Mr. Ludak can imagine an alternative does not actually mean one is either feasible or available. I'd be happy to forgo my own car if only he would lend me his flying unicorn for a morning's commute. Short of that, I'm driving.
$7 gas...
Almost EXACTLY what it will take for the Obama Motors Volt Epic Fail to be cost-effective.
IMAGINE THAT, eh?
Oh don't be silly. Big Trucking will just use the higher gas prices as an excuse to raise prices that will further inflate their already obscene profits, or something.
Stupid urbs never consider that mass transit doesn’t cover most of the nation or that carpooling only works in particular situations.
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