AutoblogGreen

If only this sentiment had been around in 1974 the US might not be in the oil pickle it's in today. However, even $4/gal oil probably won't be enough to get people to kick the oil habit.

Carter tried to lead the American public off oil during his term but facing up to reality has never been a winning political strategy in the USA. it was the why worry, head in the sand (of the Middle East) mentality of Reagan era that won out in the end. It's so much easier to ignore the hard choices and start wars for oil than to get the American public to admit and do something about their excessive energy use.

Reply

an extra tax set to keep gas at or above a set price is silly, as it will then never be below that price. What incentive would a gas station have for selling gas at $3.50 if they have to charge $4? There would have to be a rule attached that sets the gas price for each station based on what they pay for gas. But then of course you'd have the same problem with refiners. Make a rule for them and you have the same problem with drillers. So we are going to legally set profit margins on the whole industry? Should we tell them how much to pump too?

Actually, this is all pointless, since when did we concern ourselves with a politician saying it like it is? That's a guarantee of failure at the polls....

Reply

The oil bust in the mid-80's was an exercise of "soft power" on the part of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations to stop the Iran-Iraq war (remember that?) by starving the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeni (remember him?) of revenue.

It worked brilliantly: Iran lost the war, but not so badly that it couldn't significantly counterbalance Saddam Hussein's regime for several years after.

None of this would have been possible without the diplomatic efforts of the Reagan administration.

Of course, every solution creates new problems: low oil prices meant the end of many Carter-era energy programs, and made larger and more powerful cars affordable again. And Saddam Hussein became a problem too big to be managed by an intermittantly interested West.

But as a means of ending a bloody and destructive war, and of containing a vicious and fanatical theocracy, it was an endeavor of genius and some humanity.

Reply

Political courage = oxymoron

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

Reply

Change is painful - unfortunately high gas taxes inconvenience the wealthy while they hurt the poor.

Reply

Let's remember that the center piece of Carter's energy plan was Oil Shale. So had that materialized our emissions would be much higher than they are today.

Reply

Unfortunately I just don't think this proposal is politically viable. But a candidate could lay out where he thinks we need to go along with development aid for manufacturers and tax credits to get the technology mature and lower in price (with successive generations). Let the market take care of the prices (there's no new huge oil supply coming online for years and declining main fields), they'll stay up high themselves.

Reply

Holy heck -- I'm agreeing with *Thomas Friedman*? The NYT's chief cheerleader for the War in Iraq, Mr. "Just Six More Months"? Wow. I guess you can find common ground with just about anyone ;)

While I'm not sure about the "holding it flat" aspect, I agree entirely with the premise: gas taxes to create high gas prices, and use the funding to offset payroll taxes so that they don't disproportionately hurt the poor.

Reply

Thomas Friedman has as much business writing about the auto industry as I do about animal husbandry. I still recall when he equated GM with crack cocane dealers when giving rebates on SUVs.

Reply

A floor on gas prices is a bad idea. Whenever the gas of price gets that low, people will hoard because they know gas will never get cheaper.

Cutting income tax return for a gas tax is a good idea, though.

Reply

I think that such a gas tax would make drivers dirve less but here are my issues
. It will bother the rich and hurt the pott
.People may continue driving the same amount due t0 them seeing the gas prices getting any higher . The reason people are driving less is because it is hurting them qnd they know the prices are skyrocketing . If they kow its not going no where then they may be more towards just charging on
credit.
My final problem is that where would all this money go . Will it go to funding hyrid cars, electric cars , helping to subsidize cars like the volt and green technologies or into the federal governments very lenient spending budgets only increasing the feds income.

Reply

What we need isn't social engineering and a government that works to make us "secure" at the cost of our freedom to move around. This gas floor wouldn't be punishing people who display bad habits, it would be punishing everybody for the bad decisions of a few, the fact it has to be -tweaked- to lessen it's impact on the "poor" is proof to me that it's a bad idea. Special cases are usually a sign of bad design.

The best solution, pour money into research on alternatives, and work to actively educate the public about options we have now to help the problem while we strive for alternatives. A more informed public is more desirable to me than a more heavily taxed one.

Reply

Hi, I’m Nichole from MyRide.com. With gas prices rising and no relief in sight, everyone should beware of people out there trying to steal gas. Even locking gas caps won’t prevent this from happening. For tips on how to safeguard your gas tank, check out http://www.myride.com/research/editorial/makeandmodel/mixedsources.html?editorialId=3859&pageNum=1&id=31002

Reply

What I find amusing is all the crying over $4 gasoline, as if that is suddenly what it will take to wake "Americans" up to be more conservative.

HELLO. It hasn't done jack to Europeans for the most part. That isn't a land of ultra efficient cars. Yeah there are lots of small cars there but there sure are loads of large ones too.

Face it, if we don't explore and use our own resources we are forever bound to relying on other parts of the world. The fact that this damn Democratic lead Congress would prefer to enslave us further to OPEC instead of using our own resources to mitigate the dependency is criminal.

By preventing the use of our own resources, yes I know it takes years but if we had done it ten years ago we would not likely be in this mess, we would not have the ethanol fiasco trashing food prices, we would not be subject to increases in oil use by the rest of the world as much as we are today, and there is a good chance we would be cleaner.

Instead at every turn its

No to new natural gas drilling in the Gulf
No to oil drilling in ANWR (a place specifically created for it)
No to new nuclear plants
No to removing sugar tariffs
No to not paying NY millionaires for their non-farms
No to actually using fuel taxes to improve our roads (instead it goes to stadiums and places named for politicians)
No to wind power near rich liberals

Sheesh... our entire energy policy is to not have one. Any attempt to do something is met by some advocacy group which only succeeds because the government kowtows to the minority.

Reply

Chris maybe you don't realize this, but our current energy policy is Dick Cheney's brainchild. Not sure why you think the micro-majority Dem congress has much to do with it.

And your dream of ANWR - if it was started 10 years ago and was at its peak output right now, guess how much lower gas prices would be? About 5 cents per gallon or less. Wow what a game changer! And it would cost us billions in tax dollars. Don't you think it makes ALOT more sense to invest billions in renewable energy so that we can DECREASE our dependence on oil?

Creating new oil wells will only INCREASE our dependence on oil - and the foreign vs domestic oil argument is nonsensical. The price of oil has more than doubled since we invaded Iraq - foreign oil is not the issue, our blood lust to conquer brown people is the problem.

And I'm pretty sure our "damn democratic congress" just passed a farm bill that eliminates alot of the subsidy loopholes for large land owners.

Hopefully 2008 will be a banner year for a Democratic super majority congress so this country can finally start solving some problems instead of being blocked at every turn by corporate Republicans.

Reply

BGJ is as close to being 110% wrong about who is responsible for our energy policy as it is possible to be. The U.S. Congress as a group are primarily responsible for the situation as it exists today. Liberal Democrats control Congress, and their only solution to our energy problems is to drag oil executives to Washington D. C. so they can harangue them about the high gas prices that Congress has made possible by their amazingly dumb energy policies.

Reply

"I still recall when he equated GM with crack cocane dealers when giving rebates on SUVs."

A completely accurate analogy.

And, yes, high gas prices make a hell of a difference in Europe. What are you folks smoking?

Reply

@ fnc:

A gas tax, properly used, can achieve what you're looking for. What incentive is there (and I mean incentive, rather than punishment a-la CAFE) for the automotive industry to create a more efficient vehicle fleet?

And besides, how would we fund research into alternatives? A tax will have to be made, and this can be directed towards such research, as well as public transportation (that is, if the politicians can keep their mitts off the money).

Regardless of which, the end result of cheap gas is what allowed suburban sprawl, which made us dependent on the use of gasoline in the first place. Only a major shift in the way America lives will change that - and a structural change such as more expensive automotive fuel will do that.

Reply

bo-bo ... Seriously? "liberal democrats" as a slur?

Denying Cheney had anything to do with the tone and reach of our current administrations energy policy?

Wow. Where do I get that kool-aid?

Reply

I know this is a few days old but...
Anyone making under $80,000 a year?
You mean like the vast majority of Americans?
The median income is WAY less than half of that, and the median household income is barely above half of it.

Reply