The American Spectator

Steve Lee| 12.27.08 @ 6:49PM

The problem with a "net zero gasoline tax" to be offset with a "reduction in the payroll tax" is that very small business owners that do not draw a biweekly salary would still get hit with the increase in taxes.
We can see the logic behind this "Carbon Dioxide" tax idea as a way to encourage new "Green Energy" technologies but environmentalists are never satisfied, Click Link:
Think Clean
Where do the bad environmental ideas come from? Click Link:

Richard Curtis| 12.27.08 @ 6:51PM

How does giving the tax increase back work for the almost 50 percent of americans who pay no income tax in the first place. Seems we should just a have a Government employee at every gas station to hand you the gas tax you just paid back in gift cards to Wal Mart or some other store. Not only would you put people to w0rk giving out the gift cards but you would also stimulate the retail sector which accounts for 70 per cent of GDP. Seems like a win-win to me.

Steve Lee| 12.27.08 @ 6:57PM

Link for Bad Environmental ideas:
Where Do the Bad Environmental Ideas Come From?

Roy| 12.27.08 @ 8:01PM

As far as I can tell, "energy independence" is a way for conservatives to avoid confrontation with globodoom fanatics without admitting that is what they are doing.

It is nothing but "import substitution". The government forces you to buy from a domestic producer for $10 what a foreign producer would have sold for $5. End result, everybody's worse off.

The more heated rhetoric on the subject belies itself. If we really believe that oil revenue going to Saudi Arabia is directly funding Al Qaeda, then dinking around with "renewable fuels" does not come anywhere even close to being an adequate response. What we need to do, in that case, is eliminate the current Saudi government.

Bob| 12.27.08 @ 9:57PM

The problem with Krauthammer's idea is that it is a regressive tax hurting the people that can afford it least. It is not surprising that no one here on the AmSpec board thought of that since there seems to be no concern for fairness with the current conservative philosophy.

All of that said, at least Krauthammer is forwarding ideas rather than just saying no to the Democrats. I'd like to see us keep gas prices low to stimulate commerce and move to a flat tax for fairness. In terms of energy, I'm a big proponent of nuclear giving us 50% of our energy in a decade. In addition, our tax breaks should go to encourage manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and not to cap gains for hedge funds on Wall Street. That's an economic policy conservatives should push.

W. James Antle III| 12.27.08 @ 10:02PM

Richard, Krauthammer didn't propose offsetting the gasoline tax with decrease in the income tax, which many workers don't pay. He proposed offsetting it with the payroll tax, which most workers do. Bob, the gasoline tax is a regressive tax. So, to a lesser extent, is the payroll tax. I haven't endorsed the idea, I'm merely entertaining it.

Mike Liveright| 12.27.08 @ 11:22PM

I like the idea, when I read the NYT support I thought that it might be rebated either as a direct payment or as a contribution to a ROTH IRA indexed fund. That way it would be used to help everyone and still also help start to off load the Social Security load in the future.

Note: even those who do not drive will be effected by the tax as it wll cause some increase in the price of things that are transported, so even they may "reasonably" get a rebate.

One other thing, as this might be inappropriate during a ression, though it is revenue neutral, it might be phased 20% per year, i.e. over 5 years. People would still know it was coming and plan their lives accordingly.

Richard Curtis| 12.27.08 @ 11:25PM

Payroll tax or income tax its what you end up paying an April15th that counts.

VinceP1974| 12.28.08 @ 12:18AM

Gee. why dont we give Ms Pelosi our entire check and she can just leave us with what she thinks will get us through the week.

John| 12.28.08 @ 11:47AM

Be intrigued all you want. It is a loopy idea of little value and even less "fairness" whatever that is...

1. No individual pays payroll taxes. That is the "silent" half of the Social Security Bill that your employer pays the Feds for the privilege of employing you. You do not see that money... It is not listed on a W-2 form, and unless self-employed forced to pay the odious Social Security Self-employment tax, are unlikely to see any benefit from such a reduction at all.

2. Do you think for one tenth of one millionth of a second that the Feds, once brutally taxing a gallon of gasoline at pirate level rates are going to give up a penny of such a tax as the price of oil spikes up and down? If suddenly we are paying $1.45 a gallon tax on a gallon of gas in order to make the price set at the target of $3.00 how likely is it that the Feds will take much less if the target price creeps to $4.00 or $5.00?

If you think that it would be cut... there is a nice old bridge in Brooklyn that has your name on it... and I'll sell it to you real cheap..

The real answer to all of this is to get the stupid federal government the heck out of our lives.

A. Businesses don't pay taxes. They just pass the incremental costs of the taxes along to their consumers. Quit treating businesses as individuals, treat them like businesses and quit taxing them or fix the rate at some rational low level that is consistent across the board.

B. Establish a sane, flat income tax rate of roughly 17% for every wage earning person. Steve Forbes's flat tax is still the best, cheapest, and most fruitful way to go.

C. Quit using the federal government to manage behavior. The market will take care of that just fine. The Constitution was intended to keep the Feds from meddling in people's personal lives. The nanny state is layering us with so much overhead that we cannot hope to pay for it, let alone pay off our own debts.

Last... PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY. Come up with a blended package of bonds, securities, and tax-free payments that pay off the existing people owed, amortize the debt to those not yet retired... and to those who have not started working... begin their productive lives by allowing them to save for their own retirements.

This nation needs to pay off its debts, both personal and public. Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't going to accomplish it.

Happy New Year!

John

Thomas| 12.28.08 @ 12:15PM

Dumb idea. All of your fuel taxes are supposed to go to support transportation infrastructure such as roads and bridges. This is how it was sold and this is how it should be used. Now we all know that much of this money is diverted to other programs and projects. If it is used to maintain the roadways that I use and construct additional roadways I have no problem paying it.

I have a big problem paying a tax to make it too expensive to utilize a commodity that is essential for my life. This is simply stupid. If you want to encourage petroleum independence, simply allow unrestricted exploration and drilling to utilize U.S. resources. The whole argument is to reduce the level of taxation and thereby reduce the size and scope of government. You do not do that by raising taxes anywhere.

Roy| 12.28.08 @ 2:10PM

The "prejudiced against people who did poorly in school" thing cracks me up. I am not old, but I am old enough to remember when liberals imagined themselves to be "rebelling against the establishment". Now liberals ARE the establishment; lock, stock and barrel; hook, line and sinker. Back in the day they would have said that somebody who does poorly in English class is likely just failing to regurgitate the teacher's talking points. Not any more! Now that the Left is the establishment you will obey or you are an idiot.

Most of those with fake rages are the same that take wages.

Roy| 12.29.08 @ 6:48AM

Roy, I AM old enough to remember the 60's. I was in college at that time -- and a Republican. I volunteered to fight in Vietnam and served my country. You don't know what you are talking about. Anti-war protesters supported education as much as I did. And being in California, I can tell you that most of the professors were with them.

Your view of America is really corrupted.

W. James Antle III| 12.29.08 @ 12:51PM

So by your reckoning, do individuals whose entire tax liability is handled by withholding or who receive refunds pay income tax? And while I share John's policy preferences, we didn't get any of those policies implemented when we had unified Republican control of the federal government. We certainly aren't going to get them under the Democrats.

Richard, some 70 percent of workers pay more in payroll taxes than they pay in income taxes on April 15.

thirteen28| 12.29.08 @ 1:38PM

I can only think of one redeeming quality for this otherwise incredibly stupid idea: raising gas taxes (which will never be revenue neutral despite any govt. promise) will be so unpopular that being able to pin it on the Democratic congress and President Obama will ensure that 2010 is a repeat of the tsunami of 1994.

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PapaJack| 1.28.09 @ 10:29PM

The whole deal is a fraud. If they really want to zero out the Fed tax on gas all they have to do is repeal or eliminate the present tax which is 18.4 cents per gallon. No need to raise it five fold and then pretend to return it -- which is a farce of the first order. Next, would it reduce driving?? No. People drive only when they need to or have to and will continue to do so. What a piece of crap this is.

PapaJack| 1.28.09 @ 10:44PM

THE NET ZERO GASOLINE TAX FRAUD (Present Federal Gasoline Tax is 18.4 cents per gallon)
First: I am so surprised and disappointed in Krauthammer that I cannot find words to express it. Up to this point he has been my hero as to his straight thinking, but this is a tricky dicky fraud that only this Congress could come up with, and, he not only supports it but wants to increase the new Federal tax on gasoline to $1.25 per gallon.
Here is how it is said to work. There will be (but hopefully there has not yet been) a simultaneous enactment of two measures: (1) A $1 per gallon increase in the Federal Gasoline Tax (i.e., raising it from the present 18.4 cents per gallon to $1.184 per gallon). (2) A monthly to each person in the country in the amount of $14 times 4, as a refund of that taxpayer’s FICA tax.
They say that this will result in a Net Zero Gasoline Tax by the Federal government because they will have refunded to the public the entirety of the Gasoline Taxes collected by the Federal government.
Think about it. If Congress truly just wanted to accomplish a truly zero Federal Gasoline Tax, there would be no need to come up with this convoluted program which would supposedly refund to the public in such amount as to reduce the Feds’ profit to zero (BUT, in the meantime costing the Feds through the nose to oversee and administer the program; i.e., creating a mailing list, printing and sending out the checks, and making certain that they are not sending out checks to people who don’t even have cars, or have fewer cars than they claim, etc.) Again, if they really wanted only to eliminate the burden of the Federal Gasoline Tax on the public, they could just simply repeal or otherwise eliminate the present tax!!
Why do they not do that? The answer is easy. Because this new proposal is an out and out fraud. Congress makes it sound like it will be revenue neutral for the Feds, but they know full well that there is no way to accurately calculate the gas consumption by every person in this country and then strike an accurate average. Due to different driving habits, varying miles per gallon for vehicles, etc., there will always be some who will use more than 14 gallons a week and others that will use less, and I feel sure that they pulled that 14 gallons a week out of thin air, and deliberately settled on that figure knowing full well that it was a very conservative estimate. Thus they knew full well that actual gas consumption would overall be much greater than that, and that the Feds would thus make a profit on the new $1.184 per gallon tax over and above their $14 a week in rebates.
But even if they could accurately determine an average weekly use across the board. They surely had to know that this program would give a screwing to all those whose gas usage is above their arbitrarily selected average, and give a free handout to all those whose usage is below that average. But they could care less about that. All that they are interested in is the greatly increased net gas tax revenue that they know will result.
Next, I do not buy the proposition that this farce is worth while because it will encourage people to drive less. No way. Most people drive only as much as they need to, and they will still have to continue to do so after enactment of this farce.

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