>I think it's very simple: we've built a society that demands the use of
>cars. Until we un-do that, it's unfair to punish some for doing what
>they have no choice but to do. If we abolished gasoline taxes today,
>you see it as giving rich people a free-ride; I see it as lifting a
>burden off the working poor. We can get back to nailing the richies in
>other more direct and efficient ways, if that's your only convern about
>being taken seriously.
>
>I think that for me to be taken seriously, all I think I need to show
>you is that a) it would help the working poor and b) it wouldn't help
>the rich. I think it also would be an effective tool for pointing out
>that _an alternative must be presented_ before the punishment can be
>metted out.
Well higher taxes won't hurt the rich, they can afford to pay. But here's how they hurt the poor.
I live out of the city, there's no public transport at all. But of course it doesn't have to be that way, in fact it wasn't that way a few decades ago. There used to be a train pass by and stop at a railway station about 4 miles from Bracknell. There are no passenger rail services in Tasmania at all now. All gone. The money that used to go into subsidising them (and much more) now subsidise roads. Are higher prices for petrol, caused by taxes on petrol a burden? Well the price of petrol is a pain, I've had to give up driving the old Yank Tank (the Ford V8). But it isn't so bad.
In the final analysis, as I've tried to explain here about taxes (but you can't seem to get it) the socially necessary costs of travel are a cost borne by the employing class. If it necessarily costs more for the working class to live and especially if the cost of travelling to work necessarily cost more, the bosses will just have to pay more. There's no way around that. If it costs less, the bosses can get away with paying less. And if they can, they will.
Where such increased taxes, and so the increased price of the things taxed, have an impact is on influencing how people choose to budget. The increased cost of petrol has changed the cost/benefit balance for me of getting about in a Yank Tank which can keep going with a limited, nay derisory, maintenance budget, but uses enormous quantities of fuel.
So now I have to use new oil in the motor, rather than keep the old girl going with recycled (sump) oil. I have to spend a bit on the occasional service. But the little Nissan uses less than half as much fuel.
It would be more efficient to have a public transport system, but no-one's going to use it if jumping into the car is just as cheap. or even a bit more expensive. I wouldn't, that railway station was always too far away for someone who owns a car. Funny thing is, it never used to be for people who only had a push-bike to get around.
The point is, the money is spent on maintaining roads now. Which is more expensive of course, even out here in the sticks. More convenient too. That's why when cars became common and roads got paved, everyone stopped taking the train. Petrol was cheap.
But the current system means that the poor struggle to get around at all. And that won't change while petrol is cheap. If taxes force up the price, the bosses will have to pay higher wages to compensate their workers, simple as that, until an alternative way of getting to work and doing the other things transport is needed for, are organised. How does that hurt the poor any more than it hurts the rich? At the end of the day, the poor might be priced out of what would become, again, a luxury form of travel. But the rich might then have a bit more trouble getting governments to maintain roads for a small elite base of users.
And the poor might have a public transport system again, thus might get back on somewhat of an equal footing with the majority.
>I freely admit that gasoline taxes are here to stay; all I'd ask is that
>they not be used more, and that alternatives exist and ought to be
>employed. But if I were the one being asked: gasoline taxes would go
>tomorrow.
You don't even know what real petrol taxes are. Stop whining. I'm one of the poor and I'm not complaining, though the petrol taxes are a lot higher here. The sooner cars are taxed out of existence the better so far as I'm concerned. Because the sooner it happens, the sooner we'll be able to organise a more sane and cost-efficient transportation infrastructure.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas