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Pat Garofalo writes in an op-ed in US News & World Report that with the recent drop in oil prices, there's something policymakers can do that will offset at least some of the negative effects of the currently low prices, while also removing a constant thorn in the side of American transportation and infrastructure policy: Raise the gas tax. The current 18.4 cent per gallon [federal] gas tax has not been raised since 1993, making it about 11 cents per gallon today, in constant dollars. Plus, as fuel efficiency has gotten better and Americans have started driving less, the tax has naturally raised less revenue anyway. And that's a problem because the tax fills the Highway Trust Fund, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, broke so that in recent years Congress has had to patch it time and time again to fill the gap. According to the Tax Policy Center's Howard Gleckman, if Congress doesn't make a move, "it will fumble one of those rare opportunities when the economic and policy stars align almost perfectly." The increase can be phased in slowly, a few cents per month, perhaps, so that the price of gas doesn't jump overnight. When prices eventually do creep back up thanks to economic factors, hopefully the tax will hardly be noticed.
Consumers are already starting to buy the sort of gas-guzzling vehicles, including Hummers, that had been going out of style as gas prices rose; that's bad for both the environment and consumers, because gas prices are inevitably going to increase again. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, taxes last year, even before the current drop in prices, made up 12 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, down from 28 percent in 2000. And compared to other developed countries, US gas taxes are pretty much a joke. While we're at it, an even better idea, as a recent report from the Urban Institute makes clear, would be indexing the gas tax to inflation (pdf), so this problem doesn't consistently arise. "The status quo simply isn't sustainable, from an infrastructure or environmental perspective," concludes Garofalo. "So raise the gas tax now; someday down the line, it will look like a brilliant move."
(Score: 2) by emg on Thursday November 13 2014, @11:49PM
Yeah, brilliant idea. Now that things might become cheaper, and poor people might be able to buy more stuff, let's make them artificially expensive so they can't.
(Score: 1) by Gravis on Friday November 14 2014, @12:27AM
perhaps we should fix the problem that is making them poor. *hint* undo the damage reagan did and correct the minimum wage.
http://inequalityforall.com/ [inequalityforall.com]
(Score: 1) by el_oscuro on Friday November 14 2014, @02:21AM
If you raise the minimum wage, everyone won't start magically getting more money. Instead, employers will hire fewer people and make those who they hire work harder. So while some people will get more money (for working harder), others won't have jobs. It is just the way the world works. People will always do what is in their interest.
Given the wide disparity of cost of living in this country, a federal minimum wage doesn't really make much sense, unless it is considered the absolute minimum required by law and most states are expected to have higher ones. Seattle has a $15 minimum wage, which would be pretty sweet in Alabama, New Mexico or Kentucky. Set the federal one low, with the expectation that states and localities will have higher ones. It is already happening like in Seattle.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 14 2014, @03:06AM
Yay! Ideology enables shallow thinking. Hurray for uninformed analysis and shitty math!
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Friday November 14 2014, @03:19AM
Instead, employers will hire fewer people and make those who they hire work harder.
are you serious?
just doing NOTHING, the employers are continually laying off locals, outsourcing to cheap foreign labor and making the remaining locals 'do more with less'.
even if the salaries don't change (and a lot of companies have zero raises, not even a cost of living, for many of us workers) the greedy fuckers (ie, corporations) will STILL want to shave more and more from their 'cost structure'. the min wage being raised is just an excuse to fuck more people over. just like the healthcare (aca) change gave the fuckers another excuse to complain about 'worker costs'. all the while, taking huge bonuses and laying people off the minute the company numbers drop a hairline amount.
might as well raise min wage. the companies will fuck us all over no matter WHAT, but at least we can give our own people a truly living wage.
living in fear of 'what the corps will do' is not a way to live, people!!
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday November 14 2014, @01:30PM
Econ 101 says that when the price of something goes up, people buy less of it. That makes a certain amount of sense: if (for example) cheese is more expensive, I'm going to eat less of it and instead buy other cheaper food. If diamonds are more expensive, I'm likely going to choose to not buy them at all. This is good old supply and demand.
Econ 102 tells a more complicated story, though. There are 2 major reasons why the Econ 101 theory doesn't accurately describe reality:
1. If you increase the minimum wage, then those workers getting paid that wage now have more money in their pockets, which means that they can buy more stuff. This, in turn, means employers have higher sales, which will tend to offset the higher labor cost.
2. The businesses in question were already profit-maximizing before the minimum wage increase occurred. That means that all the steps you describe (laying people off, replacing people with automated systems, and doing what they could to make them work harder) are steps that the business would have already taken had it been possible for them to do so. If you were a business owner, what possible conditions would convince you to spend $25K a year on somebody who's job it was to sit around doing nothing useful?
When you look at states and even cities that have raised their minimum wage, there isn't a corresponding jump in unemployment, which would be strong (albeit not 100% airtight) evidence that the Econ 102 story is less wrong than the Econ 101 story (this is economics, so "less wrong" is about as good as you're going to get).
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 14 2014, @02:03PM
I see this a lot. It makes me really curious to know why employers today are paying so many people to do nothing. I mean, if they can fire workers in response to a wage increase, then surely they could fire those workers today and just ask the rest to work harder. I suppose it's nice that so many companies are willing to engage in charity employment - handing out money, giving people "jobs" and a sense of worth, in exchange for no value. I'm just surprised that, in a supposedly cut-throat economic market, companies would be able to survive while giving money away.
I can see the opposite - where increasing the cost of a labor-intensive product or service might cause people to stop making that thing. So I can see where a company doing something like, I don't know, car window washing, might find people willing to pay $1/day to have their car windows washed, but not $5/day. That would be guys out of work, but not because the oil-change crew has taken their job. That would be guys out of work for the same reason you see so few attendants in fast food restrooms and so many self-check lanes in grocery stores.
(Score: 1) by Gravis on Friday November 14 2014, @06:57PM
If you raise the minimum wage, everyone won't start magically getting more money.
of course not, only the people making minimum wage will get more money.
Instead, employers will hire fewer people and make those who they hire work harder. So while some people will get more money (for working harder), others won't have jobs.
no, they are already doing this, so it's a moot point.
It is just the way the world works.
no, this is how greed works.
People will always do what is in their interest.
not true at all, not even close! if they did, climate change would have been prevented.
Given the wide disparity of cost of living in this country, a federal minimum wage doesn't really make much sense [...]. Seattle has a $15 minimum wage, which would be pretty sweet in Alabama, New Mexico or Kentucky.
how is that a problem? do you think minimum wage workers need to suffer?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 14 2014, @04:01AM
perhaps we should fix the problem that is making them poor. *hint* undo the damage reagan did and correct the minimum wage.
I see no downside. The people who manage to keep their jobs will be able to afford more foreign-made goods.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Friday November 14 2014, @03:14AM
yup, lets tax the working person and the poor even more.
all the while, corps and rich guys pay next to nothing to support our country and infra!
taxing gas is WRONG. taxing rich motherfuckers is the right way forward, but of course, the rich mofos are in control and they won't do the right thing. they'll die first (in fact, that's their plan; to keep the status quo for as long as they are alive).
pushing the poor and the working class down further is NOT any kind of intelligent way forward.
I don't give a damn about what other countries charge for gas. other countries also don't typically have the divide between ultra rich and working class like the US has. the US system is broken by design and so, comparing our costs to other countries' costs is a stupid thing. the real cost of living is much more complex than cost of goods and tax added to goods.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Friday November 14 2014, @08:44AM
You could put the tax on the cars instead. Extremely inefficient cars get a big tax bill slapped on them at purchase, or perhaps yearly. That both encourages people to buy more efficient cars and means that poorer people who buy smaller cars pay a lot less than rich people who buy SUVs. It works well in Europe.
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