Democrats propose federal gas tax holiday ahead of midterm elections | Hacker News Reader

Democrats propose federal gas tax holiday ahead of midterm elections

abcnews.go.com

17 pointsRickJWagner20 comments

shouldn't they be taxing gas more? As it's one of the main source of CO2 emissions? I am not even counting: deaths by cars (most common cause of death for those under 25), living with disabilities from cars, deaths and illness from car pollution, noise pollution, cost of cars infrastructure, cost of building cities for cars increasing distance in the cities / suburbs, time wasted in traffic jams caused by cars, cost of not walking and driving everywhere which increases obesity rates, cost of car ownership?

I propose democrats give every American stimulus bicycle and tax gas

Completely agree with this statement.

The least cynical argument I can make is that D senators in swing states need to do blatant pandering like this is order to keep their seats so they can offset the extra gas consumption with better laws in the future. Their opponents probably wouldn't do anything about co2 emissions if they win the midterms.

>I propose democrats give every American stimulus bicycle and tax gas

That's one part of the BBB plan I was really looking forward to: electric bike subsidies, and allowing tax-free commuter benefits to be used for bike costs. It seems so bass-ackwards to me that taxpayers subsidize parking costs for people who drive to work, but we got rid of the benefits for people who bike.

A lot more. An economically efficient price for gas is probably a couple of dollars higher per gallon under a reasonable carbon tax.

I’ve seen claims that if you factor in negative externalities, the true price is at least double, and maybe nearer $15/gallon

Highly unlikely. To emit 1 ton of CO2, you need to burn something like 111 gallons of gasoline. Average estimate of cost of externalities of CO2 emissions is around $50/tonne. That's less than 50 cents per gallon.

$50/ton is not a realistic carbon tax in 2022.

Yes, this is pretty high as far as tax is concerned, and unlikely to get introduced soon. However, it's still less than 50 cents a gallon. My point is that it's highly unlikely that "couple of dollars per gallon" is "a reasonable carbon tax", because carbon tax so high will be greatly exceeding the actual cost of CO2 emissions. "Couple of dollars per gallon" means at least $2/gallon, so $220/tonne CO2. That's enough to cover direct air capture of CO2, which is hardly the most cost-effective way of carbon capture.

Cars provide much freedom and flexibility and protection from the elements. Bikes are fine if you are young, fit person transporting only yourself and going a short distance, in nice weather, but there are many other kinds of trips. If the Democratic senators told voters "Drive less, we'll give you free bikes" that would be unpopular.

> shouldn't they be taxing gas more?

That depends. Do you think the goal of these particular Democrats is to solve climate issues, or get re-elected?

It's funny that they don't report which spending cuts the senators are proposing to compensate for the lost revenue.

Of course it's none, so our already failing infrastructure can continue to decline.

Money is imaginary. They can just print it up with no consequences. At least that's what I'm told by the majority of young people these days who demand everything from tuition-debt jubilees to Medicare4All (including undocumented immigrants) to UBI and forever-moratoriums on rent and mortgages!

There's a bug in democracy, that's being actively exploited: the cheapest votes are the least intelligent

I suspect thats why schools are constantly underfunded and neglected.

The most expensive votes convince others to vote a particular way.

Didn’t republicans do something similar with a sales tax holiday a few years ago?

Watching Americas become third world people since we immigrated here in 1989 has been really sad.

There is no federal sales tax

This comment sheds so much light on previous ones.

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