The gas prices here in the Portland area are now around $2.25/gallon, and nationally we’re around $2.00. I regularly scan through the political cartoons at Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoon Index and a common cartoon on this subject shows someone complaining about $2.25/gallon gas, while purchasing a soda or a bottled water or some milk or a Starbucks coffee, which are labeled with their per-gallon prices of $4 or $6 or $8/gallon.
As if we’re supposed to say, oh, well, I spend $12/gallon on a Mocha Frappacino Latte, so I guess $2/gallon for gas isn’t so bad. Sheesh. What a stupid sentiment! Nobody has to purchase 23 gallons of bottled water every week just to make it back and forth to work. Gasoline is not a luxury item for many people.
Luckily I live in a city with a great light-rail and mass-transit system. I also just bought a bicycle and plan to take advantage of the excellent bike paths we have here.
Meanwhile, there’s a strange problem that is popping up here in Oregon. You may know that we have no sales tax. So most of our public works are funded from other taxes.
Well, since the gas prices have gotten so high, many people are abandoning low-mileage SUV’s and buying hybrid vehicles. The problem is that those hybrids only stop into the gas station one-third as much as the SUV’s, so the state is experiencing a shortfall in its collection of gasoline taxes, which are used to maintain Oregon roads.
So what’s the solution? They are proposing to change the tax from a per-gallon-of-gas tax to a per-miles-driven tax. Seriously. They would install a reader in the car that would calculate how many miles you have driven since your last fill-up, then add the appropriate per-mile tax to your gasoline purchase.
At first look, you might think that’s fair. If you drive 500 miles, shouldn’t you pay more to keep the road maintained than the guy who drove 50?
But think of the unintended consequences. If you pull your Prius into the gas station for a fill-up, you would’ve driven about 750 miles. Pull in the Hummer and it’s about 250 miles. So the person who is being environmentally responsible, conserving precious resources, and helping end our reliance on Middle Eastern oil is forced to pay three times the tax as the SUV driver.
Shouldn’t we be giving breaks to the hybrid drivers? Shouldn’t we be motivating the SUV owners to change their wasteful ways?
Finally, my last high gas point. During John Kerry’s visit this Monday (which I’ll blog this weekend when I post the photos) there was a small group of fanatic Bush supporters present. Me and some other liberals were engaged in a spirited monosyllabic debate with them. One of ours yelled out about Iraq being Bush & Halliburton’s war for oil. The Bush supporter yelled back sarcastically, “yeah, gas is at $2/gallon, it’s a war for oil, that makes a lot of sense.”
I just had to laugh. Let’s see, if you were a company that sells oil products, what earns you higher profits, low gas prices or high gas prices? Besides, gas has to get up to $3/gallon around September so Bush and his Saudi buddies can crash the market and get gas back down to $2/gallon in time for the election. Bush looks like a hero for dropping the gas price so dramatically, but the price still stays at the ludicrously-high $2/price so Halliburton and the Saudi’s can continue making a ton of money. See everyone wins!
Well, except most of the average gas-buying American public. And the people of Iraq.
____________________________________________________________________
|
_ | "RADICAL" RUSS BELVILLE | Read More at http://radicalruss.net/blog/
| Portland, Oregon U.S.A. | Permission is granted for reprint of this
| © 2004 by Russ Belville | post, as long as this footer is included.
