Tom Friedman has been savaged the last couple of months by theleft, generally because he hadwandered off the plantation and made sense in a few of his essays. Today, feet placed firmly in the liberal cottonfield, he comes up with a doozy: a gas tax increase, despite the fact that this would be horribly regressive and could quite possibly kill the economic recovery in the crib:
Let’s have a $1 a gallon gasoline tax and call it the “Patriot Tax.” We could use the revenue it would raise
Sean
so where’s the actual critique of the idea? knee-jerk reactions against tax increases aren’t any more informative than knee-jerk reactions against tax cuts, right…not saying you’re wrong, or that he’s right, but he presents some plausible justifications, so how would this gas tax “kill” the “economic recovery” or be “horribly regressive” and “liberal” at the same time? I certainly would have some criticism of the proposal, but I’m wondering what your actual ideas were..
John Cole
Umm- the crtitique is that it would be a highly regressive tax, do little in the way of stifling the flow of money to Wahabbist’s (how much does he really think it would cut down in their income?), and would kill the economy.
Nothing knee-jerk about my reaction. What was knee-jerk is the notion that taxes fix everything.
Kimmitt
So poor people spend a greater proportion of their income on gasoline than the wealthy? Interesting; I thought they used more mass transit and owned smaller, less expensive cars. The things you learn.
John Cole
Kimmitt- You must be from the New York/Philly/DC area.
Hipocrite
Come on, Kimmitt – you know gas is an inferior good.
How much gas can one person use? The answer is “quite a bit, but not much more than someone who makes $250,000 uses – IE, all they want, regardless of price.”
Gas taxes are horribly regressive. Boo to gas taxes.
Yay to electric car subsidies.
Kimmitt
Gas isn’t an inferior good — people don’t use less of it when they become wealthy — but I hear what you’re getting at.
I don’t tend to include the 1% or so of households at the top when looking at the regressivity of a sales tax, simply because the folks up there follow massively different spending patterns than everyone else. Also, if we include jet fuel in the taxes, the wealthy fly a lot more (and even own jets) and therefore the analysis gets more complicated.
John Cole
Kimmitt- All I know is that besides Chicago and some areasin the eastern seabord, there is NO public transportation (unless you count bus lines that don;t run when you want them to or doin’t go where you need them to) and a gas tax of that magnitude would devestate the lower and lower middle classes.
The number of people who barely squeak by with McJobs at WalMart but have to drive 60 miles round trip to get to work (and mind you, the ynormally do not have modern, uber fuel efficient vehicles) is stunning, and this would kill them for a marginal dip in the Saudi funding of Wahabbist beliefs- if you assume thast this would be the first place Saudi’s would quit spending money should their income decrease marginally. IN other words, it is a stupid idea.
An increase in CAFE standards would accomplish far more, and I am also in favor of edning the gas guzzler exemptions on SUV’s, which is appalling.
JKC
John-
To be fair, while I agree that a buck-a-gallon gas tax would be a bad ides right now, give Friedman credit for two things: exempting low income families, farmers, and truckers (through rebates), and actually proposing a way to pay for the Bush League’s adventure in Iraq. I have yet to see a similar proposal grom the GOP.
Kimmitt
You’ll get no argument from me that CAFE standards are the obvious way to go. I merely wished to point out that the idea, while I disagree with it, is not hideous, merely bad.
We do have to pay for this war somehow, and that means we have to raise taxes on something.
logiccop
Let’s stop the “Big Dig” in Boston. There’s a couple of billion all by it’s self.
Chris Lawrence
While it sounds like a wonderful idea on the surface, there’s problems galore:
– Who gets rebates? Clearly, people in flyover country have to drive more than people in the Bicoastal Elite. Giant political mess, as “Republican states” get the rebates while “Democrat states” don’t.
– Where does the $1/gal tax (an over 500% hike over the existing 18.4 cents/gallon) get spent? Some of it will go to Iraq, but the transportation lobby already wants more money too (both for roads and mass transit, which is partially subsidized out of the gas tax).
At worst, you become Britain, where most of the fuel tax is just thrown in with general social spending, and where there’s no rebate for the rural people who have to use their own vehicles to get to jobs or do their jobs.
Plus, any proposal calculated to improve America’s standing in Europe is doomed to fail, as there are 99 other stereotypes that can be dragged out of the closet to bash America with in the place of “gas guzzlers.” (Which we’d have to be still anyway, since–as previously pointed out–flyover country is BIG, and stuff people in LA and NYC need to survive has to get to, from, and across it.)
Tom Kince
The whole point of all these “brilliant” economic plans is to gut the economy to help produce a democrat victory in 2004. It’s so f**king obvious as to be transparent.
Andrew Lazarus
Hey, Tom, George Bush’s trillions-of-dollars deficit economy is doing more for a Democrat victory in 2004 than anything we could dream up ourselves.
As far as the original post, I’d like to see if there’s a practical way to have these rebates. (Introduce a threshhold for FICA tax?) When gas was $1 a gallon and some liberal suggested a $1 a gallon tax,we all heard that everything would fall apart if Americans had to pay $2 for gas. Didn’t happen.
Harry
The crushing affect of a $1.00 rise in the gasoline tax has nothing to do with personal driving habits. Altough many people probably wouldn’t make as many unnecessary trips making the tree huggers happy, but putting a crimp in the vacation industry and the livelihood of its workers, both union and nonunion. heh heh. No it’s the fact that $1.00 additional tax on gasoline would cause a price increase on damn near every salable item in the US. The transportation industry is not going to take that hit in their bottom line and neither is Wal-Mart. This idea is just really stupid. Then it comes from Tom Friedman who has the worst looking moustache in the elite media.
But the true secret of the left is that pathway to power is through the misfortune or preceived misfortune of Americans. That is why the left is always negative and sour. And that is why they put forward idiotic economy crushing ideas such as
Friedman’s.
No really, the reason I want to raise the price of every goddamned item in your pantry and house is to piss of OPEC. Puhlease. What a lying ratbastard.
JKC
Harry-
The general concensus here seems to be that Friedman’s idea was a poor one. Instead of name-calling, why not offer your own suggestion on how to cut fuel consumption in the US?
RW
I thought it was Ross Perot who suggested a large gas tax (around 50 cents) to pay off the debt? We saw how that went.
Of course, Clinton said it was a bad idea to raise gas taxes in response, a few months before he raised gas taxes.
shane
Tom Friedman: i’ve never understood this guy. he’s probably one of the most well-informed journalists around, yet he writes stories that would have a hard time rivaling some highschool kid’s ‘How We Can Help Iraq’ World Civics essay. i dont know where he comes up with this trash. like i want to pay $60 at the pump so the iraqi’s can have a better country than most of the counties in Georgia? We’re going above and beyond the call of duty for Iraq, and he acts as if we need to start blood-pouring every single citizen in the US for the sake of the Iraqi’s. tom? you’re nothing short of idiotic.
Harry
Because as of right now, JKC, realistically speaking, there is no way technologically or culturally to cut fuel consumption without severely damaging the economy. We just aren’t to the point where the technological changes that would have to occur are economically feasible either to make those changes or even develop the technology. Some is of this is beginning and more will follow. But until someone discovers something more effiecient and “profitable” than the combustion engine, gasoline is where it’s at. The US economy is an economy built on mobility and speed. The country with the fast trucks, trains, and planes will beat the country hauling crops to market in a horse drawn wagon all the time, every time. And right now the most effiecient and profitable way to do that requires the combustion engine. If we have to have taxes I believe that consumption taxes are the way to go. But not when we have a burdensome graduated income tax also. And our and the rest first world economies’ are so dependent on petroleum that change will only happen in the forseeable future incrementally. And lastly we could culturally do more to curb fuel consumption but at a cost of a severe downturn in the quality of life especially for the working poor and middle classes.
I have no doubt that technology will solve most of the problems of transportation and fuel consumption while at the same time make the earth cleaner. And it will be the “free market” and “capitalism” that make those changes possible. Because nothing utilizes and maximizes profitable changes like capitalism. Taxes never created a damn thing except the frigging IRS. Oh, that and the ‘Big Dig’ in Boston.
And a far as Friedman is concerned, he deserves to be called names after he floats something that stupid by you and I and then acts as if it a real good idea. What’s he do run this article by the likes of Maureen Dowd and/or Paul Krugman and the go, “Whattaya think Paul? I bet they’re just dumb enough to go for it.” After this article it’s obivious that Tom Friedman is not smarter than I or you, he just thinks he is. And like John sez this was a doozy.
When I started dating my girlfriend a while back see ask me things that I thought were important to me in a relationship, “Well,” I said, “I don’t do crazy.” She understood what I meant. Well I don’t do stupid either. You may, it is after all a free countryu, but I don’t.
Reminds me of that joke about the moron’s famous last words, “Hey man, watch this.”
TM Lutas
I’ll lay it out in more detail on my blog but clearly you’re misinterpreting things here. There’s only one way that Thomas Friedman’s idea would have effects close to what he’s describing. That is if it were taxed prior to export in OPEC countries.
The key? He says the tax would discourage oil imports, a feature that would only occur if there were differential taxation, something that can only be done by taxing at the source.
JKC
Harry-
I could name one way to save significant amounts of fuel right now: encourage the use of more diesel-powered passenger cars. (Calm down, Greens: the Europeans are close to solving the particulate problem.) Encouraging better mass transit in urban areas would help, too. I’m well aware that commuter trains would be useless in rural Kansas; that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t help on the urban coasts.
As for your claim that “Taxes never created a damn thing except the frigging IRS,” take a look at the US military. Last time I checked, they weren’t the creation of a group of venture capitalists.
JKC
BTW- I agree with John’s statement that “Tax increases cure everything” is a silly notion.
As silly as the idea that tax cuts cure everything.
Kimmitt
The whole point of all these “brilliant” economic plans is to gut the economy to help produce a democrat victory in 2004. It’s so f**king obvious as to be transparent.
“I think you think we think like you think.”
cameron
Nothing will be passed to encourage less oil consumption if the oil companies have anything to say about it.
CAFE standards are definatly the way to go in my book. But, how’s the saying go, “you have to spend money to make money”?
Nobody, it seems, is willing to make the revolutionary leap needed to get us off our dependence on oil. No individual company has the resources needed to push this kind of venture. Colusion of an entire industry, if you will, is needed to push alternative ideas to oil.
But, have you ever tried to get a posse going aginst the oil industry? There is a reason for that.
RW
Fuel cell vehicles are in the production phase & are soon to be available.
Hybrids are broadening their product yearly.
We are making progress….of course, anything BUT domestic expansion.
sockeye
Frankly, Tom’s column yesterday was the first sensible thing he has written in many months. I hope he has regained his senses.
drew
When I read this colum early yesterday morning I didn’t get the same impression as people on this blog did. I think Friedman was trying to construct a metaphor. He was trying to say we need to get money to Iraq, lower our dependance on Arab oil, stop deficit spending, improve our image around the world, and clean up our air.
Don’t take everything so literally, geez.
drew
One more thought:
Anybody who has read Friedman’s Lexus and the Olive Tree, as I have, would know about his penchant for metaphor. This colum could be another example.
Harry
JKC
As I said there are things that can be done but not in the scale that will need to be done. It’s kind of like knowing one day we technologically able to travel beyond the solar system, it’s just that we are not there yet, but we will get there.
Plus taxes did not create the US military. The military exsisted long before any kind of income tax was proposed. Paid for by US Defense Bonds. It’s just that today the military gets most, if not all, of its money from income taxes.
I’m sorry I don’t see the conspiracies here that some of you do. The industrial revolution and people’s homes 100 years ago relied almost solely on coal and the earth was much dirtier than it is now. In the early 1950s people in Britain used to suffocate from air pollution. We just didn’t have as many of the screwy damgerous non- biodegradable compounds as we have today. Oil allowed millions of people to become mobile and to seek better lives in faraway places. Without the introduction and utilization of petroleum the earth would still pretty much be a collection of third world countries burning the hell out of coal. But many on this blog seem to believe that there is some great devious secret out there. In a capitalist society that is damn near impossible, especially today with the advent of the internet. Then again maybe the secret does exsist and resides at Area 51 with the rotting corpse of Fox Mulder and the shooter from the grassy knoll. The simple fact of the matter is that petroleum and gas right now is the cheapest, most efficient, and adaptable fuel sources we have. The entire world automotive industry depends on it. And what in the seven rings of hell will Michael Moore, creator of “Roger and Me”, say those union workers world wide lose their jobs. Heh heh. It is not going to happen, but crap, I can have my tin-foil hat theories too, can’t I?
I dunno Drew I’m reading Friedman’s article just like he wrote it. How is one supposed to know when Friedman is being all artsy-fartsy and just writes something dumb in the newspaper. Just don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
And hydrogen is just a dog and pony show. Never will happen in the scale necessary.
JKC
“…taxes did not create the US military. The military exsisted long before any kind of income tax was proposed.”
This is the one conservative idiocy that gets my blood boiling.
Harry- let me spell this out in simple vocabulary that anyone can understand:
NOT ALL TAXES ARE INCOME TAXES. There are property taxes, sales taxes, tarriffs, etc.
Or is that concept just a bit too difficult to grasp?
David Perron
BTW, fuel cells all by themselves are going to contribute negligibly toward the end of shifting our energy needs away from imported oil. Fuel cells are an energy storage asset, not a source of energy. It’s still got to come from somewhere.
Harry
JKC, the question was on taxes creating the US military. Sorry buy that part just isn’t true. Like I said the military exsist almost solely on taxpayer dollars today. But prior to WWI the US had a token standing army and most wars were fought by citizen soldiers and militias. And actually we have never had a large standing until the WWII at that time the revenue generated defense bonds could not support the the effort needed.
You’re right not all taxes are income taxes, but all taxes are paid with income.
Now that, I realize, may to difficult for elite liberals to understand but the average American Joe Schmoe understands, believe me.