A Unique Idea on Controlling Gas Prices - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

jviehe · #1 (**permalink**) 05-28-2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/op...hp&oref=slogin

Quote:

No, our mythical candidate would say the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way: guarantee people a high price of gasoline — forever.

This candidate would note that $4-a-gallon gasoline is really starting to impact driving behavior and buying behavior in way that $3-a-gallon gas did not. The first time we got such a strong price signal, after the 1973 oil shock, we responded as a country by demanding and producing more fuel-efficient cars. But as soon as oil prices started falling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we let Detroit get us readdicted to gas guzzlers, and the price steadily crept back up to where it is today.

We must not make that mistake again. Therefore, what our mythical candidate would be proposing, argues the energy economist Philip Verleger Jr., is a “price floor” for gasoline: $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, which is still half the going rate in Europe today. Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level. If it does, it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price.

To ease the burden on the less well-off, “anyone earning under $80,000 a year would be compensated with a reduction in the payroll taxes,” said Verleger. Or, he suggested, the government could use the gasoline tax to buy back gas guzzlers from the public and “crush them.”

The flaws are of course obvious. Federal Govt is not responsible for controlling gas prices or setting energy policy. There is nothing wrong with car makers making money, nor with people driving gas guzzlers. And of course he threw in the class warfare, exempting low income earners from govt policies that hurt everyone. Basically, they guy drives a hybrid, and trades it in every few years. That should be enough to see where he is coming from. Smelling his own farts.

sbskeeper · #2 (**permalink**) 05-28-2008

I agree. It sounds pretty ridiculous.

stiffy · #3 (**permalink**) 05-28-2008

Or, how about we get rid of some of the laws that prevent the expansion of refining capacity? Just throwing it out there.

Imperator · #4 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008

I am watching cavuto argue with a democratic operative- she says congress will artificially cap the oil prices at approx. $2.50, and says they are going to bring it to the floor...Nixon tried this shit, and wham.....they never learn, ever.

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