Green taxes

People that can afforc to buy hummers can afford to pay more taxes.

Re: Green taxes

It won't. It will only make them pay a fair price for the environmental damage their chosen cars are causing.

But I agree taxes on and regulation of cars make little sense. For environmental protection, I much prefer higher gasoline taxes. Unlike taxes on cars, they target the most critical component of a fuel-efficient vehicle: its driver.

But money isnt gona solve the 'planet being b*ggered' issue.
People not doing whatever it is thats effecting the planet is the only sensible plan of action.

I would support a higher fuel tax, but totally oppose a tax on miles driven, for several reasons.

Maybe I'm not getting it, but how you tax people for burning fuel without taxing them for driving miles?

There was a scheme to tax miles driven, and it was based on GPS technology. Well, knowing the miles driven, you can imposes a tax on miles, without regard to gallons consumed. The Belchfire Eight could be taxed as cheaply as my Ford Focus, thus providing no incentive to spend the money for a car with good fuel economy.

Not to say the Focus is a high dollar car. It isn't.

Ouch. I hate the big-brotherness of this idea.

When Rainer and Ul were here visiting from Austria, he told me (I think I have this accurately) that in Austria they were taxed according to the horsepower of the car.

Totally agree, to tax us per mile is ridiculous.It would effect day to day life in a big way.

That big-brotherness is high on the list of the "several" reasons for my opposition.

I agree that a direct tax on the retail price of gasoline & other like fuels is the appropriate way for the government to influence behavior in this area. The same concept could be applied to the direct production of electrical energy - a tax on carbon fuels to encourage conservation and alternate sources.

This approach leaves those who wish to stay with old sources free to do so, but at a higher cost. It also keeps the government out of things it doesn't do well such as designing automobiles, trucks, as well as fuels and powerplants.

A serious difficulty the government faces in this area is to balance the economic side effects of raising energy prices with the supposed environmental benefits of the generally isolated environmental issues that capture the public imagination. Sadly, the issues that excite popular concern do not correlate particularly well with the real risk and damage to the environment associated with them. Moreover, there are endless complications associated with accurately calculating the relative costs and environmental impacts of various alternatives for transportation and wenergy production. These complications are invariably exploited by protagonists on both sides of the issues to distort comparisons favorably to their views. Thus, advocates of biofuels ignore the fuel consumed in raising the crops for the feedstock in their production, and opponents exaggerate them. Opponents of nuclear power emphasize the costs of spent fuel disposal and end-of-life plant decommissioning, while ignoring the fact that these costs are already included in current rates for nuclear power, while the corresponding costs for coal and renewable sources are ignored.

In short once the solution becomes politicized, truth and rationality are the first casualties. A very compelling reason to keep the government out of the design of particular solutions, either directly through direct regulation of vehicle or plant design, fuel production, etc.; or or by coercion through selective taxation of specific alternatives. Free markets in which producers and consumers make their own choices do a much better job.

Not to mention the fact that so-called nuclear 'waste' may turn out to be quite useful at some point in the future; it is high-energy stuff, after all.

Cycloptichorn