Today you get a double dose!
First this article from the WSJ:
Gas Conservation Threatens Road Funding
As the Left continues to cheer the return to the 18th century where carbon fuels don’t exist for transportation, they find a problem. When fuel gets expensive, people buy less of it. When people buy less fuel they pay less taxes for fuel. Less taxes paid means less taxes for the govt. to spend! Right now the Highway trust fund will take in about $3B less than it plans to spend. Oops!
If the national problem isn’t enough, the average state tax is about 150% of the Federal tax. That would suggest the States will be finding themselves short about $4.5B.
Any bets on the number of state fuel tax increases that will be imposed in the next year?
For our second “be careful what you wish for,” we go to the Rochester Postbulletin for a lament over the lack of B-99 biodiesel.
A year ago B-99 (99% biofuel diesel) was available at a couple of area stations for a price comparable to oil based diesel. B-99 is made from soybeans. Unfortunately, as the price of corn skyrocketed due to the increased demand required for ethanol, more farmers moved from soybeans to corn. The result is that along with corn, soybean prices have soared. B-99, if available at all, is now significantly more expensive that good, old fashioned, oil based diesel. Even the Greenies in the article say they won’t pay more than $.10 a gallon extra to be green.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our economy is based on inexpensive energy! That’s not rocket science, that’s common sense if you pick your head up and look outside of the Washington or any State Capital’s beltway. Rapidly and dramatically increased energy prices have implications that the Greens and too many in Washington either don’t want to understand or are intentionally allowing to continue.
I know many on the right are still not comfortable with McCain but remember this. As you go to the polls in just over 3 months, be careful who you vote for. Your vote also could have unintended consequences.
Weird that you try to polarize this issue, tells me that that’s the lens you see the world through, wether it reflects reality or not. Everybody understands that it’s all about cheap energy, you don’t have to be left or right to get that. You also seem to be attaching biodiesel with the greenies… The lefties? This is something explicitly supported by bush and other republicans as its good for american agriculture, not particularly a leftist stronghold. Biodiesel is about reducing our dependence on foreign oil moreso than it is about being environmentally friendly. The only reason it’s even viable right now is because regular oil is so expensive now, ie everybody gets that its about cheap energy. So it really doesn’t make sense for you to polarize this topic like it is.
Btw, oxfam (full of poverty-fightin’ lefties right?) Is vehemently against biofuels, they don’t see it as being very green atZ
One of my first blog posts was an evaluation of motor fuel taxes collected in Wisconsin versus the now-repealed automatic gas tax indexing. Gas tax indexing was first implemented in the 1980’s to make up for reduced gasoline usage in a time of increasing fuel prices and more efficient vehicles. That is the situation that we now face.
What I found when I studied the numbers was that motor fuel tax indexing increased tax collections by 39% from 1990 to 2005. However driving more miles in less efficient vehicles actually accounted for a larger increase in fuel taxes collected, 47% more over the same period.
Even with today’s reduction in driving, we are far ahead of inflation when it comes to motor fuel taxes collected in Wisconsin. The problem isn’t too little taxation, it is too much spending on pork barrel road projects around the state.
http://headlessblogger.blogspot.com/2005/12/is-gas-tax-indexing-needed-in.html
Headless,
Of course you’re right that the fundamental issue is spending and prioitization of that spending not the revenue level. As always, the simple analogy is a family budget. When our revenues drop down we find ways to adjust our spending. Govt. never looks at the world that way!
I’m surprised (not, not really) no one figured this out after they started banning smoking, then had to raise the cigarette tax to maintain revenues.
Biodiesel is about reducing our dependence on foreign oil moreso than it is about being environmentally friendly.
Yeah, I’ll believe that when they start calling for drilling off our coasts and developing the resources in Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota instead of whining about the plants and animals (nevermind the wildlife habitat being destroyed all over the Midwest to plant more corn, an irony that would amuse me if it wasn’t so bloody STUPID).
Lee, using Oxfam as an example of Greens not liking biofuels is akin to using Bush as an example of Conservatives saying it’s “OK”. The exceptions do not prove the rule. The same knuckleheads have the same position on ethanol and it has the same issues.
The 2 issues are these:
1. Don’t burn your food!
2. oil, oil, oil, oil
The issue is polarized. It’s polarized between people who refuse to recognize the reality/need of inexpensive energy and will try any idiotic thing without looking at even basic math and those who have managed to get through 5th grade math and can see that for the time being, that trying to grow enough corn/soybeans for both food and fuel doesn’t work