Congressional 50 cent more gas tax?

[Sandpebble]

The BAD NEWS is a proposal that the US congress has to increases the gasoline tax by 50 cents per gallon. The money would be used for improving transportation vacilities,such as new bridges to replace dangerous ones, repaving, new roadways, new safety systems such as message signs and 511 systems for calling to get road reports. That's the bad news for gasoline powered vehicles. Here's the GOOD NEWS, Diesel and biodiesel will be exempt of this new tax. This would equate the cost as right now diesel is about 50 cents US more than gasoline at the pumps. The new Tier II Bin 5, 15 PPM sulferoxzide emissions diesel will also be more available by the mandates of this proposed law. This would then make diesel usage more ecomomical than gasoline, due to the 25 to 30% better mileage the diesel engines get over the gasloine engines.The new Tier II Bin 5 diesel has the same emmisions as gasoline and will be the only diesel available at the pumps after 2011. Although the new diesel engines cost more to make and slighty more to maintain, the additional cost of the diesel engines over the gasoline engines at a new purchase will be recovered by the average driver in the fuel cost savings in the first two years. The old diesels will be able to run on the new diesel but the new designed diesels will only be able to run the Tier II Bin 5 diesel. The new diesel is already available is a few areas and should be everywhere by 2011. Gone are the days of the smutt belching diesels of yesteryear. We can all breath easier and save driving these new GEN 3DUS's CRV's here in good old US of A that should appear soon at your local Honda Dealer.

[Davecr-v]

Yeah like that $.50 per gallon is really going to be used to improve the roads or implement new technology :mad: . I am sure this bill won't pass I am already paying 3.15 and thats with gas buddy and working in an area with cheap gas prices. Why are working class people being punished? It costs me about 38 bucks a fillup now I gotta pay 6 bucks more! I love it we are all going to have to drive civic coupes so some contractor can ripoff taxpayers argghhhh!!! Also How is diesel supposed to help me I live in a cold weather climate without a garage and power source for a block heater. Jeez driving in this country is going to be too much like europe with congestion charges, c02 emissions tax, gatso's, and huge taxes on fuel.

[Sandpebble]

The cost of fuel is hurting a lot of people. What is causing it is that the rest of the world is paying much more. In US dollars and US gallons Europeans pay $7.70 not the $3.10 we are paying. So you might say we are catching up with the rest of the world. Emagine filling up in the UK it's $107.80 a tank in US Dollars. So what do we do about these bad economic times, we cut back on travel, as they say let your fingers for the walking, or call first to see if what you are in need of is at the store, not just drive around. Take the bus, move closer to work, car pool, stay home and blog.

[Hughesy]

Yeah like that $.50 per gallon is really going to be used to improve the roads or implement new technology :mad: . I am sure this bill won't pass I am already paying 3.15 and thats with gas buddy and working in an area with cheap gas prices. Why are working class people being punished? It costs me about 38 bucks a fillup now I gotta pay 6 bucks more! I love it we are all going to have to drive civic coupes so some contractor can ripoff taxpayers argghhhh!!! Also How is diesel supposed to help me I live in a cold weather climate without a garage and power source for a block heater. Jeez driving in this country is going to be too much like europe with congestion charges, c02 emissions tax, gatso's, and huge taxes on fuel.

The idea of high fuel prices is to encourage the use of more efficient vehicles.
I am looking at a second car (to go with the CRV when it arrives). One my favorites is a Citroen C3 1.6 HDi diesel - combined 64 UK mpg = 53 US mpg.

Small, efficient cars like that are common in Europe.
Imagine if everyone in the US gave up their trucks and drove cars like that!
Much less foreign oil imported and less CO2 produced!

And it works too. I did a comparison between a manual diesel CRV and an auto petrol, and went for the former. If gas prices were cheaper, I would have bought the much less efficient petrol...

I also thought that cold weather problems were a thing of the past with modern diesel additives. I remeber 20 years ago people used to talk about it, but here in the UK it is never a problem. Winter diesel is supposed to be fine down to -15°C (5°F). Maybe at -20°F you need a block heater, but that is a small minority of the US population.

[2RedV's]

The gas tax is very regressive and hurts the lower and middle income people the most. They cannot afford to go out and buy new, high efficiency (mpg) vehicles so are stuck with older, less efficient vehicles and pay more for fuel costs.

If the US was as compact in size as Europe and had the infrastructure in place (high-speed trains, etc) a higher gas tax might be OK as an incentive for companies to spend more money on the development of more efficient vehicles.

[GoHack]

With less driving and fuel usage, comes less tax revenue, which means even more taxes in the future.

As for taxing to repair the infrastructure of our highway system, they've been doing that already for years, and using the money elsewhere on pork projects.

I have a saying:

"The more they tax, the more they spend, the more they spend, the more they want, the more they want, the more they tax...."

.

[Davecr-v]

With less driving and fuel usage, comes less tax revenue, which means even more taxes in the future.

As for taxing to repair the infrastructure of our highway system, they've been doing that already for years, and using the money elsewhere on pork projects.

I have a saying:

"The more they tax, the more they spend, the more they spend, the more they want, the more they want, the more they tax...."

.

Thats true, and just because the rest of the world has high driving coasts i.e. road tax, 50% gas tax, and congestion chaging dosen't mean that they are right.