[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Not gonna work. I tried this in the gun thread. Trying to compare our country to others using facts and figures, only gets you a "Well, our country is DIFFERENT! There are DIFFERENCES so you can't compare us to anyone else... ever!"

Way to take unnecessary potshots, how classy of you.

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Taxes are also for shaping consumer behavior. If higher taxes lead to less gas used, then we can wean ourselves off foreign oil, and become energy self-sufficient with renewables. Especially since our electric car industry is getting off the ground. I'd tax gas higher, not to raise funds, but to gently nudge people towards electric cars.

Oversimplification of the issue. Taxes can shape consumer behavior, the cigarette tax is a good example. However, unlike cigarettes, gas is a necessity. You can choose to quit smoking, but you can't choose to not put gas in your car so you can go to work or get around.

The whole thing w/ "foreign oil" is just missing the point IMO. It's an international market, it's not as if the oil we produce are staying inside the country. Foreign oil, domestic oil, they all go into the same pile that is the international market. The only way to change that would be to nationalize the oil industry and/or severely restrict/ban oil exportation.

As far as renewables go, solar and wind are nowhere near advanced enough to replace coal in the US, and the only one that can - nuclear, gets all the bad press.

Originally Posted by Kaijo

It needs to collect that from it's citizens somehow, without putting undue hardship on people, ie, taking away money that someone needs to feed themselves. Thus, you have to exclude a certain minimum of income and declare it as needing to sustain basic living. Everything above that, is fair game.

Which ironically is something that an increased gas tax will do.

There is, of course, the argument to reduce spending, and that holds some weight....So spending needs to stay as is. The only thing left to us, is to raise taxes. And the only place to do that, is on the rich.

You can't continue to spend $3,000 every month when your monthly income is merely $2,000 forever without having it coming back and bite you in the ass later. I'm all for a progressive tax code, but the idea that the US can tax its way out of trouble purely on the rich is not only ridiculous, but also mathematically impossible. You can tax their income at 100% and not do much than making a small dent in the annual deficit. That's not to say that there should be widespread and mindless budget cuts everywhere, the problem is that we're not spending our money wisely, or at least we're doing it with too much waste.

Ultimately what you need is growth, without which nothing else you do will be enough.