>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Subject: RE: $3 a gallon gas?
>
>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> >Actually, public goods associated with automobile transportation - roads,
> >traffic control, police protection, safety testing, etc. are already
> >financed by government i.e. general taxes. The only difference is the
> >point of collection, gasoline tax is collected at the pump while general
> >taxes - from your mortgage payments or paychecks.
>
> >Given the mildly progressive nature of our tax system and essentially
> >regressive nature of gasoline tax - this is not necessarily a bad thing.
>
>To the extent that these things are financed by local taxes then the
>finance is not mildly progressive - it's mildly to severely
>regressive.
>My guru on auto finance, Charlie Komanoff (who's a big fan of
>technophilic user fees), says that the regressiveness of gas taxes is
>exaggerated, and what problem there is could be offset with income
>tax rebates.
But Doug, your "guru" admits they are regressive, according to your very own words. Then why would working class-oriented leftists propose a regressive tax on workers, and why mask it over with a rebate contraption that would be unnecessary if this regressive measure was not proposed in the first place.
>Poor people suffer enormously from the wretched state of
>public transit in the U.S. - many low-wage workers have to take the
>bus,
Got any statistics on that? I suspect low-wage workers drive crappy cars rather than ride crappy buses. That's because the automobile enjoys a big social subsidy (from various sources), making even the poorest workers able to own, not one, but 4 or 5 crappy cars. That's why Latino neighborhoods here in CA are covered with autos - there's always 1 in 4 that is running well enough to commute to work. I've played that game myself.
>which means hours of commuting to & from some crappy job every
>day - so merely keeping gas prices low to help the poor is pretty
>inadequate.
Whereas raising their consumption tax will work wonders for their standard of living.
> >The same pertains to the various "user fees" proposed by some technofiles
> >(e.g. electronically recorded fees for using specific roads or even lanes,
> >sort of E-Z Pass writ large) - these fees would hit the communiting working
> >class harder than the leisure class.
In general, the irrational development of the American metropolis since WW2 represents a very deep structural problem that probably cannot be resolved short of a full social revolution. It needs a systematically _planned_structural solution - not marked-oriented manipulation via tax policy. The "best", "environmentalist" argument for the gas tax - that it will "rationalize" transportation usage - is hardly likely to make a dent in this problem. It is far more likely that the old patterns will persist of necessity, money will be sucked out of worker's pockets by well-heeled middle class environmentalists, whom workers will then come to hate along with the leftists who support such policies.
-Brad Mayer
When it comes to deep social problems such as this, the guideline should be: Don't propose anything that hurts workers.