Passing Laws / Gas Mileage

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

------- Original message -------
From: Robert Lee  <robertslee () verizon net>
Sent: 7/4/'05,  12:36

Gorvernments have been passing laws since before the time of Hammurabi.  If one more law was the answer to our 
problems, our problems would have been handled a 
long time ago.  I propose one more law.  The law is that in order for Congress to pass one more law they have to repeal 
two.  For example, the Sarbanes Oxley Bi
ll is a travesty.  Everything that it seeks to eradicate is already against the law.  All you have to do is enforce 
those laws.

You don't have to pass a law requiring car manufacturers to meet certain gas mileage limitations.  They merely respond 
to demand.  You merely have to tax gas gu
zzlers or tax gasoline.  If you do not want gasoline consumption, tax it.  The taxation puts pressure on the supply 
side costs.  More of the total gas dollar wi
nds up in the hands of the tax payer, rather than the hands of the gas companies and sultantates.

John Kerry was wrong on the 50 cents a gallon tax.  It should have been twice that.  The only president in my time to 
legitimately address gas mileage was Jimmy
 Carter.  Five minutes after he was out Ronald Reagan gutted it, as has every president since then.

Do not try to regulate the manufacturers, tax the consumers.

I don't want my wife to drive her 11 mile per gallon SUV.  But I also feel more comfortable about her safety given the 
preponderance of them on the road.  If yo
u want fewer of them on the road, tax them.  The fewer there are, the fewer there will be.

This is a concept well known to Congress, which actually offers a 10% tax credit (not deduction) for purchasers of the 
Humvee.  Sounds unlikely?  Yes, but true.
  They will tell you it is an accident, a loophole.  But they will not close it.  So is it an accident?  No.

I am tired of hearing anti tax people suggest that taxing imparts values and taxation should be values neutral.  
Nothing is values neutral.  Dong nothing, doing
 something, it all imparts values.

Some problems ARE easy.  Currently it is a travesty that people buy cars that get 11 miles per gallon.  But if the 
owners of those cars were paying the freight 
to clean up the damage caused by their usage, then so be it.

Two weeks ago I pulled into a gas station. The pump, left by the previous customer, was stopped at exactly $75.  Even 
cents.  My first car was $73.


Robert Lee



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