Driver2165

These are the taxes on gas by state. As you can see, they aren't that high. The first number is for regular the second for desiel (in cents per gallon).

New York 31.9/28.9

yell, well, right wing media like CNN and the NY times is gonna take the pro-business stance 10 times out of 10.

you've got a strong point there. another reason for the small jumps is that the oil tankers are waiting outside the US until the price of oil jumps on fridays so they can make an extra buck per barrel. it's very simply a supply and demand problem. the demand is the brunt of the problem, and there's been various small supply issues.

i take issue with the notion that it's not the fault of the anticonservatism convservative goverment. it's not a coincidence that a gallon of gas was 75 cents at the end of clinton's presidency (just like it's not a coincidence that goverment spending was lower and abortions were far less frequent, but i digress). bush refused to do anything with mileage requirements for cars, and a few mph would have been enough to keep the supply/demand equation at the status quo. i'm glad it's not though. i love the high prices, i just wish the extra money went to public transit and road repair. but either way it's a win for the country, not to mention the environnment.

Gas taxes are federally required to go to the dot. So it is going for road repair. that's part of the problem. They need to allow states to decide if they want that money to funnel into roads or transit (at least to give them the choice). Part of the reason that the miles driven keep rising is that states have too much money for road construction, but if they don't use it all it goes back to the federal government (and who wants that) so they spend it all building unnessesary roads. But with each unnessesary road people think it's that much easier to get around so that make choices to take more trips. It's a really poorly conceived system, but no one really wants to fix it.

The fortunate thing for Europeans is most of them don't have to commute as far since most cities and towns are very condensed and the larger cities have a sophisticated enough transit system that it'd be a waste of time to drive anywhere that isn't out of town.

Yeah, Eliot is getting chatty. When I was over the other day, that was the first time I'd heard her REALLY cry and she talked more than all the previous times put together. Aww, what a sweetie.

what really annoys me is all this talk of price gouging.

yes. the oil companies had record profits. They've had record profits every year since 1981. You know why? Americans drove more miles and had worse fuel efficiancy. Just like every year since 1981.

It's like when your sibling makes you hit yourself and then asks you why you're hitting yourself.

Yeah true, but that's a long-term remedy. A lifestyle change, if you will. I can see the price gouging argument, as a short-term step. The wierd thing is that oil companies are also taxed a huge percentage of their earnings...not to mention the massive taxes on the consumer at the pump. I think it'll be a few years before cities would have the infrastructure to support mass public transit. And that's if things got going now.

I also heard an interesting statistic, that most of America's foreign oil imports come from Alberta. You'd think that would be cheaper. I seem to remember reading that in the Globe and Mail.

Yeah true, but that's a long-term remedy. A lifestyle change, if you will. I can see the price gouging argument, as a short-term step. The wierd thing is that oil companies are also taxed a huge percentage of their earnings...not to mention the massive taxes on the consumer at the pump. I think it'll be a few years before cities would have the infrastructure to support mass public transit. And that's if things got going now. I know there are some cities that are already able to do that, but most North American cities aren't. Case in point: Minneapolis.

I also heard an interesting statistic, that most of America's foreign oil imports come from Alberta. You'd think that would be cheaper. I seem to remember reading that in the Globe and Mail.

i'm saying the tax should be higher, not the profits. tax is a dollar amount per gallon, not a percentage. it's the same no matter how much it costs, not like sales tax. road repair is necessary. even road construction, just not to the extent that it currently is.

the reason nobody wants to fix it is that we have two parties in this country. distant right wing pro-business democrats and extreme right wing fascist republicans. and a few people in between.

I would like to thank our facilitators, Ryan Pitman and Zakcq Lockrem, both senior editors for The Economist, for contributing to today's round table.

I would like to thank our facilitators, Ryan Pitman and Zakcq Lockrem, both senior economic journalists for The Spartacist, for contributing to today's round table.

hehe... ben always posts twice... and the Sparticists were awesome.

Some road construction is obviously nessesary. I think that states should be able to slide some of that money towards transit if they want however. And I definatlly think that should be a state desiscion. Wyoming doesn't have the density to need a large transit system, but New York (or even Minnesota) would benifit from being able to decide that themselves instead of at a federal level.