Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
The tax on oil would be designed to reflect the TRUE costs of using that oil.
Please provide an equation as to the "TRUE" cost of using that oil. How much more per gallon should gas be.
Please explain how we won't be exchanging dealing with one group of people that don't like us for another.
How are people going to afford all that wiz bang new "green" stuff with economy perpetually in tank due to your taxes on energy.
High gas prices impact the POOR and middle class the most. You WANT these people to be worse off than they are already.
Actually, I want the poor to have to carry their own weight. If that were to happen, the middle class might actually be able to survive. Since over 50% of the nation doesn't pay any income tax, I'll all for fewer income taxes and taxing thing such as IMPORTED oil. (You seem to be missing that key modifier.)
We don't have to pay any more if we make choices such that we no longer have to import oil.
You are missing that aspect of it.
How much will oil cost when there is none? How will that impact the economy? How will that impact global stability?
I'm all for free markets. But let's have the markets reflect the true price.
How do you calculate the tax on imported oil?
Cost of military operation in and around the gulf to stabilize the middle east. Costs of Israeli assistance. Economic costs of trade deficit, the oil importing portion. Those are some of the things that would go into such a tax.
So the little incursion into Iraq, repaid by a tax on imported oil.
We know how many barrels we import, so figure the costs, divide by the number of imported barrels and that's what is paid for each barrel of imported oil.
If the economy finds this is too expensive, it will figure out how to stop importing oil.
If we are using locally sourced energy, unless the folks of Indiana suddenly no longer get along with KY or IL, we are buying from ourselves.
The wizbang green stuff (and who said it was green? I said we need to stop importing fossil fuels.) It won't be here overnight, so as the technology develops, the price comes down.
This has been true for any technology that eventually becomes ubiquitous. Look at cars, televisions, computers, even energy became cheaper as it became wide spread.
Why would any technology that is not imported energy be any different?
Again, I want an economy where the costs are borne by those who benefit. If someone is poor and driving a car, they need to pay the taxes to support that and not depend on someone else for a hand out that is channeled through the government system.
So if it takes some short term pain for us to be come more self sufficient, either as the poor, or as a nation as a whole, I personally believe we are better off enduring that now, than waiting for a future change that is likely more painful, more long lasting pain, and certainly more expensive.
It's like that Fram commercial from the 70's and 80's, you can pay me now, or you can pay me later.
We can see that our welfare system, our economy, and our energy policy are not sustainable.
There are fewer paying taxes supporting more on the dole.
There are fewer producing sources of fossil fuels supporting more demand.
One cannot continue to borrow without repaying. This is true for energy as well as money.
We cannot remain on the dole of cheap foreign energy any more than we can allow more and more to expect society to pay their way in terms of health care and other social services.
Neither trend is sustainable.
So tell me, how do we keep up what we are doing with fewer tax payers and more poor? How do we continue to do what we are doing with fewer sources of fossil fuels and more world wide demand.
I want cheap energy too.
I simply don't believe fossil fuels will remain the cheap energy source. Certainly IMPORTED fossil fuels are not when the policy costs are factored in.
I simply want to set up a dis-incentive to continue to rely on fossil fuels.
If you think fossil fuels are the way to go, present your plan to support the energy needs of the US using only domestically produced fossil fuels at the same low cost we enjoy today.
I don't think it can be done. The cheap easy oil has been pumped out. It's now the expensive, hard to get oil and the conversion of oil shale and coal to fuels that we see as domestic fossil fuel sources.
There is natural gas as well, but I'm confident we can use that faster than nature will reproduce that as well.
