Gas tax to expire
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:34 am
This is a serious opening for the TEA Party: If they can successfully block renewal of the gas tax (and perhaps a few others), they can effect revenues enough that the debt ceiling issue must be re-visited just before the next election. One can hope.
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:42 am
I’m sure even if the tax is removed NY State will find away to continue sodomizing its residents.
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:13 pm
If it was utilized as intended I wouldn’t mind the gas tax so much. As intended it is a classic use tax. If you’re using the roads, you’re paying for them through taxes on the fuel you buy.
In practice though, POS politicians suck that money away for other things and we end up with roads in crappy shape…
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Hmmm. Maybe someone smarter than me can explain what the Constitution means by Post Roads. Is that the Interstate System now? If so, is Congress required by the Constitution to maintain funding for them?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then I will give you the same answer I would give to someone who wishes to take away my 2nd Ammendment rights. Submit an Ammendment to the Constitution, get it passed through Congress, and let the People decide. Or else you will have to come up with another tax to replace it.
If the answer is no, then let the Tea Party do what its members were hired to do.
As someone who would prefer to see a National Sales Tax replace the current Income Tax, I don’t have any heartburn over the gas tax. It hasn’t been increased since 1993, and I do not see the problem with the people who use the roads actually paying to help maintain them.
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:27 pm
How will eliminating this tax change the market clearing price of gasoline?
August 3rd, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Tasso, I don’t believe it will. Nor will it change the price at the pump. Since federal funding of highway maintenance projects would dry up (maybe, although I still believe they would come up with another tax. They ARE politicians, after all), States will be more likely to increase their own taxes to compensate. This may or may not be a good thing, although I believe that the closer the gov’t entity that’s spending money is to the people, the more control the people have. That is a good thing. The down side is that most States are in worse shape than FedGovCo, so the roads will probably get worse before they get better.
August 3rd, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Even if Congress isn’t mandated to maintain a road tax per the Constitution, the liberals will probably fight more for this than the debt debate. The loss of the gas tax would be seen as a big blow to the green energy movement, even though the gas tax is supposed to be a use tax and not a “sin” or “penalty” tax.
August 3rd, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Jim: Post roads are originally mail delivery routes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Post_Road
The evolved into the the US highway system.
The Interstate highways are technically a military reservation, and were paid for originally under the War Department.
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Actually the gas tax is mandated to go to road maintenance and transportation related uses (this is so bike paths and pedestrian facilities can be funded as part of gas tax funded projects) the vast, vast majority of which goes toward car related transportation facilities. If the gas tax goes away the roads will get bad pretty fast, like in a couple of years and we will see delays in all type of shipping and long term it will be a huge hit to our economy. I am all for smaller federal government but this kind of use tax is the kind of tax you can choose to pay. If you don’t want to pay it don’t drive. If you do drive you are on public roads (if you buy gas/diesel for off road only use there are ways to get it tax free) so you pay for them. Seems fair to me. In reality to keep up our transportation infrastructure we should probably be increasing this tax, and this is the epitome of a fair tax.
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Kristopher, I agree that that was the original usage. And I agree that that is indeed how the Interstate system came to be.
In my opinion, however, the interstate system can only be funded (as per the Constitution, anyway) by the Federal Government if the system is considered to be what the Post Roads have evolved into. If the Interstate System is now what the Post Roads were then (original intent of the framers must be taken into account here), then the U.S. Gov’t would have to provide funding (unless someone can argue that the funding requirement was not in the Constitution, which would also mean a thorough review of the original intent of the framers of the Constitution). If it is not, then the Federal tax should expire.
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:19 pm
ANY TAX under the Anointed One’s Admin will expire one day AFTER the disbanding of the ATF, and not a second sooner, or Jan 21st, 2013, which ever comes First. Democrats cutting Taxes? HAHAHAHAHAHA!
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:46 pm
If they cut the gas tax then gas stations will just increase prices to match. Samething happened in the past and it’s happening today with the Airlines while the FAA has been shut down.
August 5th, 2011 at 9:23 am
Kristopher, Wiki is misleading in its definition (Say it isn’t so!). They did not mean mail delivery routes — there was no delivery until the Civil War era. Those are mail transport routes, later expanded to railways, steamboat lines and “airways.” And we’d better watch our virtual step, because the same expanding definition might be extended to Al Gore’s Invention.
The major impact of the loss of the federal gas tax would be decision-making about motorcycle helmets, seatbelt use, speed limits and DUI limits devolving to the states.
August 5th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Getting rid of this tax would be an easy victory for Boner and the GOP….and, after the debt-ceiling “cave-in”, they need all the easy victories they can get b/t now and Nov ’12…..