Higher taxes is very pro-oil. Another concept many people unfortunately miss, it's regressive. Ummm...there's a reason why we don't tax groceries and do tax alcohol. Anyway, in such a case, a fuel tax increase is passed directly onto the consumer, with a little more gouging BAMM! It's really a poor excuse to do nothing to correct the problem. What has cigarette taxes accomplished? With Marlboros nearly $40 a carton but $20.95 CDN at the NYS border duty-free, you better believe every car is coming back daily with 1 carton per occupant. People are smoking up and eating $1 Big 'n' Tastys.

Telecommuting is pretty bogus if you ask me. I've popped-in on some people that report to me mid-day, only to find them in pj's watching tv. Big brother, yep, and young people shouldn't have to babysit 40 year-olds. Maybe for sales it works, because you don't produce, you get canned, so if you're sc****** around using telecommuting as excuse not to come in, you get weeded out. But for mgt., it doesn't work. My boss, by the way, telecommutes. She hasn't a clue what the people under her and their staff are doing. Yet we implement lots of new stuff and cut costs without her. Life goes on and while she drives her new Navigator into her 28 gal./11 mpg sunset.

 

I won't ask you about telecommuting then. IMHO, it rocks. We use Sametime, phone calls, conference calls, e-mail and so on to stay in touch. Sounds to me like you have some lame people that shouldn't be allowed to telecommute. I agree with you that the people who use it substitute for daycare or to stay home to care for a sick child can ruin it for the legit telecommuters but the people on my team at IBM take it seriously. It's no different to me, aside from face time, than if they're in the office.

 

Actually in Kansas we get taxed on everything we buy including food.

I understand that this country is based on your freedom to anything you want as long as it's legal. So buying an SUV is the freedom of choice and I can't do anything about it. BUT I've got a great idea.

What about a SUV/truck tax? Why are people who buy luxury cars/exotics forced to pay a luxury/gas guzzler tax when Mrs. Yuppie Smith doesn't have to pay squat on her 6000lb Yukon XL that get 14mpg while carting her two children? Obviously if you can afford a 30K+ truck, you can afford to pay a $2000-3000 gas guzzler SUV/truck tax. The tax money could be used to develop new technologies for cleaner burning engines, new types of fuel, etc. People who own there own business, farmers, etc wouldn't have to pay the tax. With this tax, everyone would get what they want.

Dave

 

How about we stop over taxing the wealthy. Another tax of any sort is the last thing in the world we need.

Because someone enjoys an automobile that you deam to be unnecessary, they should pay an outragous tax?? It's not governments job to try to control the way we live by over taxation. We live in a free democratic country. We don't live in a socialist society where government deams what is good and bad for us.

Sure your tax idea makes some sort of sense in a isolated manner. But you have to look at where this line of thinking comes from and where it is going.

It all started with the ani-smoking campaign.

A group of people don't like smoking. Not only do they not like smoking, but they don't like you smoking. So they tax the hell out of cigarettes and ban smoking in privately owned restaurants.

A group of people are concerned with obiesty. The think video games, TV, and internet use is the cause of peoples laziness. So they create a tax on all new TV's to try and discourage people from laying around and watching TV. It's called an entertainment tax.

A group of people don't like______ . They think it is bad for us. So they put a tax on_____. This will discourage people from______.

Taxing items that a group of people deam is excessive, unnecessay, yuppie and extravagent is not right.
How about the damn government stop streching it's tenticles into every avenue of our lives with there over taxation.

 

I30tMikeD,
I understand your point, but no matter how you cut it, smoking tobacco is not good for you. People watching TV is subjective about making them lazy because not all people who watch TV are lazy. Smoking being detrimental to your health is very objective and all people who smoke, would be more healthy if they didn't. Air pollution follows these same basic rules. It is not very hard to see the difference between the two (TV and smoking) examples.

Besides, a new Excursion costs what? $50,000? Well if someone has $50K of expendable income to spend on transportation, then they can handle a gas guzzler/luxury tax as well. Why should they be allowed to pollute the air that WE ALL breathe just because they have more money?

I am generally very right wing, and though I think I understand what your saying, I don't agree with your statement at all.

 

Here's the drag of it, it's a free market and the people are speaking with their dollars. People have the choice to vote for more fuel efficient vehicles and they're not doing it. So, the general population is not overly concerned with resources consumed per mile driven. Is it the governments job to create a disincentive to buy SUVs or the public's responsibility to police itself and change its behavior. Given that Bush and friends are unwilling to sign on the Kyoto accords I would venture that the current administration views it as the second option rather than the first.

$50 to fill (30 gallons) the truck this weekend. OUCH! I want my Maxima back on the road.

 

 

by reading your response you did not understand my point. The last thing we need is another tax. I do not like government using tax laws to try and dictate how I live.
I has nothing to do with smoking be bad for ones health.

And what would the government do with a luxury tax on SUV's?? Spend it on cleaning up the air pollution. Yea right. It would just get wastfully used on useless programs like all the rest of our money.
What struck a nerve with me was the idea of a new tax. Tha is the last thing we should do. Our government is a huge black hole of waste. You know they can't account for 10's of millions a dollars a year? Yep, just can't account for it. Gone, lost, nobody know'w where it's at. Lets stop giving them more money to waste.

 

Instead of a new tax, what I'd like to see is tiered gas pricing based on EPA gas mileage. Your vehicle is in range #1, you pay this much. Range #2, this much. The lower your mileage, the more you pay. I don't own an SUV, but I'm looking ar purchasing a truck and let's be honest here. These giant SUV's are not only using much more gas and producing more pollution, but they are harder on the roads too. My uptopia would be that the extra money gained would be used to fund road construction and such, but I'm not that naive.