Some states want to punish fuel-efficient car drivers!

Discussion in 'General Motoring' started by Tim Howard, Jan 8, 2009.

  1. Tim Howard

    Jeff Guest

     
    Jeff, Jan 15, 2009
    #81
  2. Tim Howard

    Shawn Hirn Guest

    You're not seeing the big picture. Gas taxes do not cover the full cost
    of our nation's highway system. A lot of road repair and maintenance
    comes from revenue streams other than gas taxes. Do you think a town in
    Wyoming with a population of 1000 generates enough gas tax revenue to
    pay for all the roads those people use in their area? I don't think so.
    Even those who don't own a car or a drivers license still pay gas taxes
    indirectly through the cost of the goods and services they use.
     
    Shawn Hirn, Jan 16, 2009
    #82
  3. Tim Howard

    Brent Guest

    You're mixing two things. Gasoline and other road taxes are
    redistributed. Not only over a county, or a state or even the nation but
    diverted to non-road purposes. But those are taxes FOR ROADS and are
    paid for by DRIVERS. The various other taxes (almost always property
    tax) paid by non-drivers that go to roads go to the most local of
    roads. And nobody in po-dunk WY is a non-driver, that is if he isn't
    living some sort of 19th century mountain man lifestyle that is.

    You were talking about a non-driver who lives in chicago paying for
    roads in the suburbs outside the CTA's service area. Sorry, it just
    ain't happening by any accounting I'm familiar with. As a non-driver he
    isn't paying any specific road taxes, just general taxes. What general
    taxes he pays will be going to roads within the city, ideally the one in
    front of his house.
     
    Brent, Jan 16, 2009
    #83
  4. Tim Howard

    Sharx35 Guest

     
    Sharx35, Jan 16, 2009
    #84
  5. The true purpose of the environmental movement is to keep the prices
    Marin County certainly is, and it demonstrates how they got their way.
    Just TRY to move there if you don't have more money than God.
     
    John David Galt, Jan 17, 2009
    #85
  6. Tim Howard

    Mike Hunter Guest

    All one need do is look at the price of property in California and it become
    apparent what the runaway environmentalism of the environuts has done to its
    cost, and the costs of many other things in that state like prices for fuel
    and electricity
     
    Mike Hunter, Jan 17, 2009
    #86
  7. Tim Howard

    Jeff Guest

    Certainly, the price of buying houses in the Silicon Valley Area and
    San Fransisco are amoungst the highest in the nation. But this has
    very little to do with the environmental regulations. It has a lot
    more to do with people love the climate and people like to work for a
    lot of money in the electronics and biotech industries as well as at
    some world-class universities.

    The cost of electricity in CA is less than the cost in New England
    states. I don't know how much of this has to do with environmental
    regulations. Much of the cost might have to with the free market
    system where utilities bought electricity from companies like Enron.
    California now gets a lot of its electricity from burning natural gas.

    However, I don't consider environmentalists nuts. Rather, they are
    people who like the environment that we all share to survive. I don't
    see what is so nutty about that.

    jeff
     
    Jeff, Jan 18, 2009
    #87
  8. Tim Howard

    Sharx35 Guest

    Social engineering, the DAHLING of LIEbrawls everywhere is what is nutty.
    Penalize industry and you won't HAVE the revenue to your greeny shit.
     
    Sharx35, Jan 18, 2009
    #88
  9. As far as wear is concerned, likely so. Road wear goes up much
    greater than linearly with weight.
     
    Matthew Russotto, Jan 18, 2009
    #89
  10. Bull. There's still plenty of vacant land there; the only reason
    housing is expensive is that the eco-nut movement "protects" most of
    it in order to MAKE it expensive.
    Both areas have adopted so much eco-nut regulation that it's next to
    impossible to build or expand power plants. Thus it's a race to see
    which area will outgrow its installed capacity first. Up to last
    year I would have bet on CA, but now that Schwarzenegger (a Democrat
    in sheep's clothing if there ever was one) has managed to ruin CA's
    economy even more than Gray Davis did, New England may get there first.
    California has put off the problem for a few years by building wind
    power plants (and forcing utilities to subsidize them), but the sites
    where they'll work are pretty much exhausted (unlike New England, where
    I hear Ted Kennedy still prevents them being built where they would
    spoil the view from his beachfront house).
    Two things are nutty about the environmental movement. One is that it
    is based on assertions of emergencies that just don't exist (and the
    fact they don't exist is obvious to anyone who knows what he's talking
    about). The other is that the movement explicitly rejects the only
    two mechanisms that could solve such a problem if it did exist -- the
    free market and new technology.

    You need to read the works of Julian Simon, especially "The Ultimate
    Resource 2".
     
    John David Galt, Jan 18, 2009
    #90
  11. Tim Howard

    Jeff Guest

    No, they preserve the land so that there will be nature there in the
    future, like a national forest is preserved to keep the forest.
    Certainly, with so many companies making do with the technology they
    have, the economic slowdown has greatly affected many companies in the
    Silicon Valley area, causing many lay-offs. The state universities
    have limited the number of students in attendance and cut budgets,
    which affects the communities in which the universities are based. The
    economic problems have limited biotech R&D as well as biotech and
    technology IPOs as well as start-ups. Clearly, these problems were not
    caused by the gubinator.
    Not to mention by using other forms of solar energy (the winds are
    created by energy from the sun).
    I have to disagree with you here. There are major environmental
    problems, like the lowering of thee water tables and water shortages
    in many parts of the world, including US West, global heating,
    disappearing forests, decrease ocean pH (as result of CO2, which is an
    acid) and a generally degraded environment.
    The free market system doesn't work properly unless the enviornmental
    cost is included. I see what you mean. It is not like any
    environmentalists are suggesting people use electric cars, hybrid
    cars, solar power, wind power, nuclear power, power from waves,
    improved computer efficiency, flourescent lights or anything like
    that.
    Jeff
     
    Jeff, Jan 19, 2009
    #91
  12. Tim Howard

    Brent Guest

    If you want to preserve land you buy it add rules to the title and pass
    it on in your family or to a group that will preserve it by obeying your
    legally binding wishes.

    A national forest or other government controlled land is protected so
    long politics make it so. Those in government will gladly lease the land
    to their friends to exploit the natural resources. Not being owners but
    merely renters of 'public land' they will destroy it entirely.

    Passing laws to restrict your neighbors from building on their land
    after you built on yours is just plain incompatible with liberty.
    The free market does include the environmental cost. Except there hasn't
    been a free market in the modern age. What was decided is that
    certain people were allowed to foul their neighbors' and public lands
    and waterways. A true free-market property rights system would have
    requred that the pollution remain on the property of those creating it
    or otherwise safely disposed of.

    The system that is in place is one where the government allows those
    with the right connections in the political system can dump a particular
    amount of their wastes into the waterways, are allowed to have so much
    pollution damage their neighbors' property and so on. Then instead of
    actually going to a property rights point of view environmentalists want
    to tax end users for the 'environmental cost' of the products. The
    tax is placed on products that are made regardless of how
    responsible the manufacturer is and favors the politically connected
    persons (who are favored by the existing regulations). It's absurd.

    True environmental costs will be reflected once we have system
    based on property rights instead of political power.
     
    Brent, Jan 19, 2009
    #92
  13. Tim Howard

    DanKMTB Guest

    New England (at least my part) has the means to create plenty of clean
    power. The nuke plant in Seabrook was supposed to have a second
    reactor, but that was squashed. The amount of additional power that
    second reactor would generate is huge.

    There is also a plan in the works for underwater turbine in the
    Piscataqua river. We'll have to see how that progresses.

    There is currently a company in Newburyport, Mark Ritchey Woodworking,
    that is putting up a wind turbine to provide their own power. It's in
    the middle of an industrial park, not like it overlooks anyone's
    yard. Still, opposition was fierce and they were dragged to court
    countless times over it until the judge finally had enough and gave
    them the go-ahead while pre-emptively squashing any further appeals.

    It can be done, and we have the means. The problem is those opposing
    every step to get it done, while of course running 5 ACs in the summer
    and being part of the cause of the brown-outs. Everyone wants
    "something done", but whenever anyone does something those same people
    object. It's both frustrating and amusing to watch.
     
    DanKMTB, Jan 19, 2009
    #93
  14. Bull. There's still plenty of vacant land there; the only reason
    If there were ever a shortage of scenic, natural terrain, then the price
    of land kept that way would rise enough that it would pay to maintain it
    and charge admission to the hikers, campers, and hunters.

    The fact that it hasn't happened yet through the free market shows that
    there is no such shortage, nor any prospect of one. Way too much land
    is unbuilt and going to waste now. Anyone who tells you different is
    lying.
     
    John David Galt, Jan 22, 2009
    #94
  15. Tim Howard

    P J Guest

    You just need to fly across the country and look out the window to see
    how much land is uninhabited.
    pj
     
    P J, Jan 22, 2009
    #95
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