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Yeah, thanks Dingell...but no thanks.

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Isn't this just another tax on the working poor?

December 13, 2005 marked Congressman Dingell's 50th anniversary in the US House. I just looked over his entire website and NOWHERE does it say which party he is affiliated.

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"Isn't this just another tax on the working poor?"

Because the working poor own 3000 sq.ft.+ homes, run oil companies, and tend to generate multiple-ton carbon emissions. Right.

And can somebody clarify just why it is that the "working poor" shouldn't pay a tax?

Note that, as a single guy earning less than $30K a year, I fall into that category, so anybody wanting to fly into histrionics about me being an elitist can stuff it.

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"Because the working poor own 3000 sq.ft.+ homes, run oil companies, and tend to generate multiple-ton carbon emissions. Right."

No, working poor drive 15 year-old poorly maintained gas guzzlers because they were given to them or cost them $300 and it was all they could afford. And the cost to fill them up is already making it hard to live and a 50 cent tax will just add to the problem. And NO, they can't just take the bus. Especially in the rural south (overflowing with working poor), it is very unlikely that they could maintain even a "working" poor status without personal transportation (another problem for another day).

"And can somebody clarify just why it is that the "working poor" shouldn't pay a tax?"

They already do pay taxes. However, with the exception of the lottery (which is the biggest tax on the poor that we have yet to devise), the tax burden is generally less in terms of a percentage of income so that the tax burden has less of a chance of putting them on the street. A flat tax of any kind (including the gas tax) spreads the burden evenly across the population, which on a percentage of income basis makes things much worse for the "working poor" than it does for even the lower middle class.

"Note that, as a single guy earning less than $30K a year, I fall into that category, so anybody wanting to fly into histrionics about me being an elitist can stuff it."

Not an elitist. Just a . A single guy making 30K (presumably just out of college) is far from working poor. Single, you are well into the middle class with that salary. You can afford to buy a late model Jetta or Civic and/or move to an apartment closer to work and offset the gas price increase. True working poor don't have these options.

FWIW, I would MUCH rather them raise taxes from a revamped sense of a gas guzzler tax on new cars and a luxury tax for new SUV's (refundable for buyers who can prove business or large family needs) than tax gas flatly across the board. And if Detroit stopped paying so much to lobby against such changes, they might not go under because of them...

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Do it already.

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The gas tax should be something reasonable, like a 5 Cent a Year mandatory Increase. You can't just jump the price of gas up by 50 Cent.
[ Yes, I know, it hasn't stopped ExxonMobile. ]

An Income of $30,000 is in Working Class 1, out of five classes:

2005 Numbers
0-18,000 Poverty
18 - 34,700 Working Class 1
34,7 - 55,300 Workinc Class 2
55,300 - 88,000 MIDDLE CLASS
88,000 - Really Really High Upper Class

Median household income: 46,300

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

This is why we push for Fuel Economy Standards.
60% of the population makes less then $55,300.
Is it really too much to ask the Ultra Rich Give Up V12 Super-Guzzlers so that the Tax Burden Isn't Pushed onto the Poor and Working Classes in the Country?

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The British Know how to be Effective:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0810/p01s01-woeu.html

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"And the cost to fill them up is already making it hard to live and a 50 cent tax will just add to the problem."

Oh, BS. If you're so poor that 6 or 7 bucks a fill-up is going to break the bank, you're not driving. I could afford the gas price fluctuations after Katrina, at a time when I was making 1200 a month in grad school. 6 or 7 bucks is a trip to McD's or an hour of overtime.

"Single, you are well into the middle class with that salary."

That'd be working class. At best.

"You can afford to buy a late model Jetta or Civic and/or move to an apartment closer to work and offset the gas price increase."

Oh I can, can I?

"FWIW, I would MUCH rather them raise taxes from a revamped sense of a gas guzzler tax on new cars and a luxury tax for new SUV's (refundable for buyers who can prove business or large family needs) than tax gas flatly across the board."

That I suppose I agree with, to an extent - but if the idea is to discourage excessive gas use and promote conservation, it should be applied fairly, to everyone who uses the resource.

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Consumption taxes do hit the poor harder than the rich. One way to mitigate the impact would be to use the additional tax revenue to fund corresponding cuts in general sales tax. Everyone, including the poor, would retain similar levels of disposable income yet still have an incentive to reduce their fuel use one way or another. Ergo, the plight of the poor is not a valid excuse for failing to raise fuel taxes, you just have to

As for funding infrastructure maintenance, Pres. Bush has a point: Congress does love its pork-barrel projects because that's how they raise their campaign funding. This gross inefficiency is a direct consequence of sticking with an antiquated constitution based on elections in gerrymandered constituencies, ridiculously short two-year terms in the House and unlimited political advertising on commercial television for any candidate who can afford it. In the last 40 years, the skyrocketing cost of financing political campaigns has turned the US into a plutocracy, only thinly disguised as a democracy.

Pious admonitions to revisit spending priorities will have zero effect, especially coming from a President who abjectly failed to rein in spending when his own party had a majority both houses of Congress.

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This is silly now, but middle class is defined many different ways (just look at that wikipedia article). I considered middle class to be above the median income level. Again, looking at that same wikipedia article, for HOUSEHOLDS, this is $46,326, but for SINGLE wage earners was $23,535. For those over 25, the median is $32,140, but if snark is over 25, I'd be surprised--seems like my Objectivist sensibilities had passed by then. :) Regardless, under few circumstances would post-graduate educated folks considered "working class." Lower-middle at worst unless they have english or history or philosophy degrees and are forced to work as plumber's assistants. :)

Mike, I'm not sure where you got those five ridiculous "levels," but anyone who considers middle class to span only the 60th to 80th percentiles of society is DAFT. And for the >80th percentile to be "really really high upper class"!?!?! I'm approaching that level and believe me I'm no where near an upper class. In fact, we're not even upper middle. I'd probably be low at drawing an upper class line at the 95th percentile ($154,120 HOUSEHOLD income--usually two incomes--to me this would be at most upper middle class in most areas of the country). I'd bet most would consider that line closer to the 98th or even 99th percentile.

"Oh, BS. If you're so poor that 6 or 7 bucks a fill-up is going to break the bank, you're not driving. I could afford the gas price fluctuations after Katrina, at a time when I was making 1200 a month in grad school. 6 or 7 bucks is a trip to McD's or an hour of overtime."

Umm, I think you just destroyed your own argument FOR the tax. If while earning a measly $14,400 a year you absorbed $1 to $1.50 per gallon fluctuations without making significant changes to driving habits, then do you really think a $.50 bump would make a dent in overall consumption, especially among the "upper classes" who "generate multiple-ton carbon emissions"? (there might be other positive outcomes based on how the income is used by the feds, but I have NO NO NO faith that the government can spend that money towards a positive end--might as well leave it in the hands of the oil companies)

Back to fruitful conversation, I think that the offset (gas vs. sales) idea might work if the logistics would allow. Of course sales tax is state/local and the gas tax would be federal, so the logistics couldn't work without some major overhauls or unheard of redistribution of federal funds into state coffers. And no, you don't "just have to" raise consumption taxes. IMO, the goal is to reduce BOTH per vehicle consumption as well as (to the extent possible) excessive discretionary consumption. The later MAY be best solved through some sort of consumption tax (though I can think of other possible ways), but the former is the bigger problem and the easier one to solve and can be handled in MANY different ways IF our "leaders" (corporate and government) will get their rumps off of their high horses and do it.

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I think they could do something a little more creative. Would it be so hard to have a stepped registration tax? So, for example, you would get taxed a fee for "excess consumption" every year, but the rate would be tied to your income. So someone in a lower income group would only pay a small fee (or nothing, if the vehicle was small business related), and people in higher income brackets would pay much more?

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"So, for example, you would get taxed a fee for "excess consumption" every year, but the rate would be tied to your income."

Robert, ...I don't know. Defining "excess consumption" would probably become very complicated. You would have to use some kind of average and correct for things like location, age, etc.

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