The New York Times' editorial board is calling it. The SUV's Time of Death is… Black Tuesday. And while their headline says "RIP," what they actually mean is "may you rot in Hell you gas-sucking, planet-warming bastard." "It’s hard to convince most Americans that there is a silver lining to $4-a-gallon gasoline. But General Motors provided a nugget of good news when it announced that it would shutter much of its production of pickups and sport utility vehicles — and might even get rid of the Hummer, the relative of the Abrams tank unleashed on the streets in the cheap-gas days of the 1990s. It’s hardly the solution to global warming, or the country’s dependence on imported oil, but it’s a start." No ambiguity there, then. Nope. Nor is there any doubt– well, just a little– that high gas prices are just what the planet ordered. And can I get that with a side order of MORE taxes? "Expensive gasoline is not good news for most American families… Still, Americans’ response to rising gasoline prices makes an excellent case for a gas tax. It proves that drivers will change their behavior in response to high fuel prices. And even if Detroit doesn’t buy global warming, drivers can help persuade it to embrace fuel efficiency. They don’t even have to know that the Honda Civic emits less than half the 13 tons of greenhouse gases spewed by the Ford F-150."
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The New York Times and Washington politicians deserve one another.
Nuff said.
Personally, I can’t wait until they tax the total amount of taxes that I pay. Maybe Pennsylvania, in their infinite taxing wisdom, can spearhead that effort.
Classic urban vs. suburban disconnect. What idiot drives in NYC?
I hate is as much as anyone but gas prices are succeeding where CAFE has failed – getting Americans to think about energy consumption. Given the price trend of gas, however, I don’t think we are in any need of additional taxation.
Ronin317 :
Personally, I can’t wait until they tax the total amount of taxes that I pay.
I believe in the UK, you pay VAT (Sales tax) on the gas tax; so your (approx) 100% gas tax payment is taxed again at 17.5%.
True…Good ol’ VAT. I have to say, it felt good getting all the VAT I paid when I went to school in the UK back on my taxes when I came back to the states…
hey, in Sweden they can tax you on more than you earn.
It discourages bazillionaires.
Also, i think the NYT’s point is that a gas tax wouldn’t hurt if your car got 100 mpg.
And hey, my car barely manages to get 20 mpg. Stings like a bitch.
When buying a new car in the UK in 1990, I recall that there was a 10% car tax. Then, there was a 17.5% Value Added Tax. On the price of the car AND on the Car Tax. So, the Brits taxed their own taxes.
Mexico has a 15% value added tax on nearly everything.
The NYT (“never met a tax we didn’t like or wouldn’t hike”) reminds me of that old workplace notice, The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.
Its hard to convince most Americans to take the NYT seriously. Its editorial writers don’t seem to venture too far from the republic of the Upper West Side, so as not to sully their viewpoint with the reality of the masses. Feh.
Dissing the NYT says more about the attacker than the attacked.
I’m surprised the NYT has time for automotive trivialtiies. Don’t they have a presidential campaign to run?
There should be a gas tax?! A GAS TAX?! What about the $.30+ per gallon we pay now? What do they call that? We already have gas guzzler taxes at purchase time on cars with crummy mileage, and big taxes at the gas pump. They can’t be that dumb. Of course, it doesn’t matter to them, since they live in NYC and take public transport everywhere because owning a car there is a different sort of hell. If its good enough for them, then it should be good enough for the rest of the country.
The NYT can rot in hell, along with their gas tax.
No shit, pfingst — talk to me, brother.
I can’t stand the NYT. They make me want to vomit. They’re slowly giving me a coronary. Their rhetoric appalls me. They talk about Americans as if they’re not also Americans. Just read that editorial.
And FURTHERMORE…their own actions are contradictory. You don’t have to be a Bush supporter to observe this, either: On one page their thinly veiled words decry, in so many words, the administration’s inability to slow the rise of fuel prices; on another page, they praise the higher prices. (I can think of plenty of politicians who seem to say these things, too.)
Honestly, it’s as if the NYT’s newsroom smokes too much dope for its own good. And I’m not even totally against smoking dope. That’s sayin’ somethin’.
The New York Slimes- leftist socialist rag that it is. Talk about a company in decline…
The NYT has a world view of America. Most Americans don’t understand what a world view is. If more stood back and looked at how other successful societies operate, they would see that America does some things great and other things very poorly. America in 2008 is not the same America the world loved from 1900 to 2000. NYT often talks about the things Americans do poorly, but hey, perhaps your right, lets kill the messenger.
And a much higher price for fuel — even higher than what we pay now — is one of those things the world does better?
And what am I and everyone else around here?
Just more American dolts who need to listen to and obey our elitist masters at the NYT, who know the world sooooooo much better than we do?
Just because the rest of the world’s doing it doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. I’m sure the NYT realizes this, too. Yeah. Right.
I don’t blindly follow what the rest of the world does any more than I unquestioningly accept what Republicans or Democrats (or anyone else in between) in the U.S. say.
Look…I’m just exaggerating here to take some of these weak arguments in favor of the NYT and show their logical, end-point conclusions.
SUV is a big market. Just because they call cars “crossovers” doesn’t mean they aren’t the high riding wagons of old.
I want an SUV but can’t afford one. I can’t afford a toy one. If I could afford full payments on a XTerra or Liberty I would be able to afford the gas to drive it.
I don’t like FWD based SUVs for towing, which is what I’d like to do.
brent- the Times and politicians don’t mind that the price of gas went up. They’re just pissed that it wasn’t their doing.
davey49: Precisely. We now have an entire wing of the political spectrum actively rooting for things to get tough for American consumers. Priceless.
“R.I.P. to the S.U.V. ”
Not even close.
From 1935-1990 SUVs only had a market share of 2-5%.
Even with the declines this year they are still at 10x those historical levels.
I hate is as much as anyone but gas prices are succeeding where CAFE has failed – getting Americans to think about energy consumption. Given the price trend of gas, however, I don’t think we are in any need of additional taxation.….
CAFE “failed” only because they didn’t slowly increase the threshold over the years, and because of the stupid loopholes. The blame for that belongs squarely on the shoulders of the “Republican Revolution” in 1994. They attached a rider to the Transportation appropriations bill EVERY year that forbade the Clinton administration from even studying increases in CAFE, let alone making incremental changes. A bone tossed to the TTAC’s favorite executives. A real meaty bone.
Instead of CAFE, we should have instituted a registration surcharge for guzzlers. SUV’s could have had one class, cars another. Buy efficient, and a rebate is yours. Buy an H2 and cough up 500 clams extra a year. this would have the same effect as a gas tax, but without the regressive effects. It would also avoid penalizing those who have to drive to work, if they chose something that is reasonably efficient. The New York Times forgets that many people have no other choice but to drive to work. They really don’t like cars either, which is a source of contention for me when I read it every day on the morning train. Their Editorial board is no more left biased than those who write the New York Post, (or any Rupert Murdoch media outlet for that matter) are biased to the right. At least the Times is well written and is geared to those who have more than a fifth grade education. And the majority of the outwardly leftist stuff is in the editorial op-ed page – where it belongs.
No matter how you look at it, importing over 50% of our petroleum needs and burning the stuff up was never a smart strategic move. The only thing which is even starting to put a dent in demand is sky-high prices. A smart way to get from where we were to here would have been to incrementally add 25-50 cents per years to the gas tax these past 20 years and at the same time reduce income or social security taxes and equal number of dollars. The we could have more gradually moved to a much more efficient vehicle fleet, reduced oil imports and done so without a financial shock. A few brave souls suggested doing so, but always got shot down for even having the temerity to THINK or SAY it.
Alas, demagoguery always gets in the way of doing the smart thing over time and we end up finally dealing with problems when they reach a boil-over crisis point. Then, we often deal with them poorly.
C’mon John, we both know the revenue from gas taxes would never find its way into social security or offset income taxes. Revenue from social security witholdings can’t even find it’s way into social security.
For a government as incompetent as the NY times claims it is, I find it interesting that they’re so gung ho about throwing more money into it.
Quasimondo, that’s kind of a content-free position to take, and not particularly accurate anyways. Some types of taxes in Europe are actually surprisingly low in comparison to here – the extra money they get from fuel taxes made that possible.
golden2husky: CAFE “failed” only because they didn’t slowly increase the threshold over the years, and because of the stupid loopholes.
The loopholes existed because without them, the law would have been scrapped entirely. It’s the same as the speed limit on most limited access highways – people don’t complain because they know that there is some “leeway” in enforcement. If the police really enforced the speed limit to the letter, people would complain so much that the limit would either be raised to realistic levels enjoyed by sophisticated drivers (about 80-85 mph in many areas), or enforced so loosely that most people would ignore it (as it is now).
If the CAFE loophole had been closed, it would have provoked an outcry, and the entire law would have been scrapped. Which would have been a good thing.
golden2husky: The blame for that belongs squarely on the shoulders of the “Republican Revolution” in 1994. They attached a rider to the Transportation appropriations bill EVERY year that forbade the Clinton administration from even studying increases in CAFE, let alone making incremental changes. A bone tossed to the TTAC’s favorite executives. A real meaty bone.
A selective reading of history. I don’t recall Congressional Democrats pushing too hard for an increase in CAFE when they controlled Congress in the 1980s. For that matter, after the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, both the White House and Congress were controlled by the Democrats (until the fall elections of 1994). And Al Earth in the Balance Gore was vice president.
During that time, I don’t recall any serious push to increase CAFE, even though, with control of two branches of government, the Democrats were in a position to push through an increase in CAFE. But they didn’t.
For that matter, in the late 1990s, President Clinton was quite effective in staring down Congressional Republicans (remember the government shutdown in the mid-1990s?), but I don’t recall him willing to make this a priority. Why? Because customers (read, voters) didn’t want it.
golden2husky: Instead of CAFE, we should have instituted a registration surcharge for guzzlers. SUV’s could have had one class, cars another. Buy efficient, and a rebate is yours.
Or, we could let the free market take care of it, as it is doing now. And in the real world, the vehicle that gets the best mileage isn’t always the most all-around efficient choice.
golden2husky: Their Editorial board is no more left biased than those who write the New York Post, (or any Rupert Murdoch media outlet for that matter) are biased to the right.
Which is to say, pretty biased. But they pretend to be objective, which is the main problem. I don’t recall the Murdoch publications making any pretense at objectivity.
golden2husky: At least the Times is well written and is geared to those who have more than a fifth grade education.
Yes, the creative writing displayed by Jayson Blair and the stringer who was turning in stories without have attended the events (his name escapes me) certainly appealed to an audience that appreciates good fiction. Except, of course, that it was on the news pages. Oops..
And then there was the Duke Lacrosse players rape fiasco, where The New York Times ended up with egg on its face. When the original stories by reporter Joe Drape basically supported the accounts the accused players, this contradicted The New York Times’ editorial stance. This led to Drape’s dismissal and replacement by Duff Wilson who took a pro-prosecution stance.
We all know how that one turned out…apparently those who possess more than a fifth grade education skipped that class in school that taught “innocent until proven guilty.”
M1EK: Some types of taxes in Europe are actually surprisingly low in comparison to here – the extra money they get from fuel taxes made that possible.
The relevant question is what is their TOTAL tax burden. Singling out one or two taxes, and claiming that they are lower than the equivalent taxes for Americans, provides an inaccurate picture of the total relative tax burden.
Oil and Gas are undertaxed in the US end of story.
The entire cost to the Govt. of policing the Middle East – that’s multiple carrier groups in the Persian Gulf all the time, bases all across the region, endless subsidies to Israel, two Iraq wars etc is crippling the federal budget and should be tacked on to every barrel sold.
Then you can start to calculate the cost of building and maintaining all the infrastructure required for cars and cleaning up after them.
Personally I’d happily pay $8+ for gas, consider it a bargain and enjoy the less crowded roads.
hal:
Or we could drill for more oil here, or perhaps lift the many, many, MANY prohibitive regulations on refinery development, which contributes its own fair share to the rising cost of fuel — regulations made possible by a bloated government, in turn made possible by the prohibitive tax burden you and I share.
Something tells me you’re full of it when you say you’d happily pay $8 per gallon of gas. But let’s just take your statement at face value. A lot of people in the great heartland of our nation would slip into poverty. That’s because, by virtue of the landscape, they often must travel great distances to go about the daily business of living. And, by virtue of the many jobs they have
in farming, they must use quite a bit of fuel to go about the daily business of doing business.
M1EK:
One thing our politicians continually bandy about as a reason to keep taxes high is to combat poverty. See above. And below…
I was taxed 40 percent on my 2007 income. I’m not rich. Without telling you and everyone else here exactly how much I make — which would be a tacky thing to do — I’ll simply say I grossed, as a self-employed individual, far less than six figures. With my wife’s income included, we were still shy of six figures (by a mile). I’d like to help my mother and father, both fast approaching their 70s and unable to make ends meet living in their falling-apart home. But I guess the money I sent to the government will have to help my prents through government programs I (and they), in the infinite wisdom of our dear centralized leaders, may or may not benefit from.
Do you really think government wants to tax oil in order to discourage its use? Do you really think government wants to deprive itself of revenue. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if our politicians resolved to tax oil to high heaven and then also instituted measures disallowing the development of alternatively fueled personal transportation.
In your world, M1EK, someone like me should have to pay even more in taxes. I thank the Lord people like me still have a vote against people like you.