An idea to reduce oil consumption and restructure the way we pay taxes.

[SpiritualAntiseptic]

Taxes have always been used to encourage and discourage certain behaviors.

HUH?

Taxes have never been used that way, until just recently. Taxes are to fund the government.

Only recently have politicians decided they should manipulate the behaviors of the population by taxation.

 

[MikeK]

Taxes have been used since before the first days of thios country to encourage and discourage trade with certain countries. Trade is a behavior.

 

[ScottBot]

HUH?

Taxes have never been used that way, until just recently. Taxes are to fund the government.

Only recently have politicians decided they should manipulate the behaviors of the population by taxation.

Which is why most of our politicians don't deserve to be in office. Our country is teetering on th edge of the very reason we revolted against King Charles. The people being abused by the government for the sake of a few.

 

[Dominus Fidelis]

How about we stop spending billions in Iraq and instead put that money towards a "Manhattan Project" to be energy independent? Our gas prices are high due to the low value of the dollar. If we get all of our energy domestically, it won't matter that our dollar is low compared to other countries currencies.

 

[Antigone]

The big objection (and a reasonable one as far as it goes) is that
a higher gas tax hits the poor harder than the rich -- not just from using their cars, but because gas prices implicitly figure into the price of anything that has to be transported. My preferred solution would be to use the revenue generated by a higher gas tax and cut some combination of payroll and income taxes.

Or perhaps - use the extra income to develop a decent public transportation system that will be affordable to those with less-than-stellar incomes? That's what we do over here - cars are very expensive, just the (mandatory) insurance and taxes alone. Public transportation, both inner- and intra-city, is cheap and efficient.

 

[ScottBot]

How about we stop spending billions in Iraq and instead put that money towards a "Manhattan Project" to be energy independent? Our gas prices are high due to the low value of the dollar. If we get all of our energy domestically, it won't matter that our dollar is low compared to other countries currencies.

You don't have to convince me. I think we should pull out of Iraq, Japan, Germany, England, Italy, Korea, Bahrain, Spain, Brazil, and all of the other places we have forces. We should keep a strong Navy and Marine Corps, as the Constitution authorizes, draw down the Army and Air Force, and reallocate that money for energy independence. I think we should have a National Health Insurance that COMPETES with the private sector, not replaces it. We should get rid of the Department of Education. Social Security should be privatized. Lobbyists should be put in prison. Congress should have term limits. The Presidential term should be 10 years (so we stop considering these morons that keep running, when people realize that they are stuck with a quasi-king for a decade).

 

[MikeK]

You don't have to convince me. I think we should pull out of Iraq, Japan, Germany, England, Italy, Korea, Bahrain, Spain, Brazil, and all of the other places we have forces. We should keep a strong Navy and Marine Corps, as the Constitution authorizes, draw down the Army and Air Force, and reallocate that money for energy independence. I think we should have a National Health Insurance that COMPETES with the private sector, not replaces it. We should get rid of the Department of Education. Social Security should be privatized. Lobbyists should be put in prison. Congress should have term limits. The Presidential term should be 10 years (so we stop considering these morons that keep running, when people realize that they are stuck with a quasi-king for a decade).

I can agree with all of that, except that I think the retirement benefit side of social security should be abolished, not privatized. Our government must provide for the weak - but not for the retiremwent of the able-minded, able-bodied who worked (or could have) for 40 years. Also, shooting lobyists is cheaper than improsoning them. Our streamlined new military is going to need something to use for target practice. Also, there is a value to forward basing, I would keep some foreign bases open. It's nice to have a friendly airstrip or drydock and repair facilities on the other side of the globe. I don't see any sense in maintaing a huge standing Army when opupying other countries is something that I simply do not want us doing. Tanks and rifles should not be the arms with which opur policies are carried out anymore. They are expensive and ocupying foreign lands is a political nightmare. We can destroy our enemies without ever landing on their soil. We have no reason to overthrow governments when it's so much cheaper to just wreck all their best toys.

 

[Epiphanygirl]

I'm glad you brought this up MikeK. I don't believe there is an oil crisis at all, only a greed driven oil industry.

Since 1997, there has been a solution for our energy needs and our environmental needs. But General Motors and Exxon have buried the solutions.

There was a battery developed back than that would easily fit into a all electric vehicle which would out perform fossil fuel driven automobile engines, it was guaranteed for 10 years and it would hold a electrical charge for over 400 miles but Exxon owns the patent on it which they brought off the inventor and has not allowed it to be used for the above mentioned type electric vehicle.

General Motors had invented the EV-1, an electric car capability of out performing a fossil fueled car in many ways and was in very little need of long term maintainence but because General Motors didn't want such an economical car out on the road, they would only lease them and not sell them. When a California Law, that had prompted this invention was repealed, General Motors quickly pulled the vehicles off the market as soon as their leases ran out and refused to sell any of them to the public even though there had been outrage and demontrations by the people who where aware of the vehicles.

General Motors instead collected all the vehicles and disabled all of them so that they couldn't be used and as far as I know they have only one of them in memorail that has also been disabled.

You don't see any of our governmental leader promoting the recall on these inventions simply because big money, big influence and fear thinking that it would disrupt the world economy so much that it is better kept secret and ignored.

Do we really think they don't know? Not me.

Yep............
The U.S could have easily been out of this situation, we have the technology, it's just being withheld.

All this is.........Big boys with big toys playing with peoples lives.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

I think our military should be domestically produced oil exclusively. If that means drilling in ANWAR, so be it.

.

Of course global warming has started melting the permafrost making transport in and out of the region more difficult....

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

Okay- did WOG sound like a native English speaker or what ( albiet a little grassy knoll for my tastes)?? Wonders will never cease...I think that's evidence that there is hope yet for our country....

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Or we could just drill our own freakin oil. We have huge reserves of it everywhere, but the stinkin tree huggers won't let us touch it.

ANWR does not have enough to make much of a difference.

 

[Ivy]

Lobbyists should be put in prison.

HEAR HEAR!!!!!!!!

 

[BAFRIEND]

(Mikek^)I don't see any sense in maintaing a huge standing Army when opupying other countries is something that I simply do not want us doing. Tanks and rifles should not be the arms with which opur policies are carried out anymore. They are expensive and ocupying foreign lands is a political nightmare. We can destroy our enemies without ever landing on their soil. We have no reason to overthrow governments when it's so much cheaper to just wreck all their best toys.

I can agree with that in regards to going to Iraq. That was a big mistake. But regardless we cannot leave Iraq if it means the possibility that Iran will go in there and finish off the Kurds and even worse. Irans plans are to take it when we leave and defend its new borders with a nuclear arsenal.

Also, trying to take the convenient road- using surgical strikes to destroy the leadership in 'ghanistan only resulted in them flying commercial airliners into high rises in Manhattan. If you think tanks and rifles are expensive then you should think of the cost of dirty bombs.

What happens when we don't have a large army and they set that dirty bomb off and chill in Syria and we are not capable of getting to them ?

 

[MikeK]

Also, trying to take the convenient road- using surgical strikes to destroy the leadership in 'ghanistan only resulted in them flying commercial airliners into high rises in Manhattan. If you think tanks and rifles are expensive then you should think of the cost of dirty bombs.

What happens when we don't have a large army and they set that dirty bomb off and chill in Syria and we are not capable of getting to them ?

That's why I favor much stronger security on our borders and at air and sea ports.

..and I think we can go get them in Syria if need be. Syria is weak and but for oil (the oil I want us to buy much less of). We can launch surgical attacks against Syria with legitimate cause today withoput upsetting the stability of the world very much. Now, if terrorists start camping out in china or Russia, then we have a problem. Fortunately, today it doesn't look like either Russia or China would tollerate that.

I'm not terribly worried about dirty bombs. I tend to think that they would be far less destructive than people fear - in fact, I think people's fear is all that could make one effective, much more so than the radioactive material it would let loose. People should be educated post haste on exactly what a dirty bomb can and cannot do. It cannot render a city uninhabitable, and it is very unlikely that many people would lose their lives from one. I would be expensive and inconvinient to clean up, but nowhere near as bad as 9/11.

I certainly don't have all the answers, but I can't think of any situations where huge beach landings, troop surges and 1000s of airborne troops coming out of the sky is the most efficient way to do business. commando raids? Certainly. Invasions? Nah.

 

[BAFRIEND]

..and I think we can go get them in Syria if need be. Syria is weak and but for oil (the oil I want us to buy much less of). We can launch surgical attacks against Syria with legitimate cause today withoput upsetting the stability of the world very much.
[ /QUOTE]

Syria will lose its airforce in a matter of minutes- but its military is well trained and equiped and specialized and will fight and will not be easily destroyed. If this is so simple how come we cannot end the fight in the manner you propose while on the ground in Afghanistan with the same technology ?

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

I can agree with that in regards to going to Iraq. That was a big mistake. But regardless we cannot leave Iraq if it means the possibility that Iran will go in there and finish off the Kurds and even worse. Irans plans are to take it when we leave and defend its new borders with a nuclear arsenal.

Also, trying to take the convenient road- using surgical strikes to destroy the leadership in 'ghanistan only resulted in them flying commercial airliners into high rises in Manhattan. If you think tanks and rifles are expensive then you should think of the cost of dirty bombs.

What happens when we don't have a large army and they set that dirty bomb off and chill in Syria and we are not capable of getting to them ?

I haven't heard anything about Iran wanting to wipe out the Kurds. Do you recall where you heard that?

 

[Dominus Fidelis]

Who cares if Iran takes over Iraq. It will be yet another bad guy in charge there. Same as before we went in to Iraq.

We need to not be dependent on those maniacs.

 

[geocajun]

I don't support your idea at all, Mike. I drive a big truck which gets terrible gas mileage. I support folks going green because it will lower the cost of gas for me. If I can get enough folks to go green, then I plan upgrade to a V-10

The last thing I want to see is more taxes on the consumer. Let's tax the profits from oil companies to pay for military arms...

 

[Dominus Fidelis]

I don't support your idea at all, Mike. I drive a big truck which gets terrible gas mileage. I support folks going green because it will lower the cost of gas for me. If I can get enough folks to go green, then I plan upgrade to a V-10

The last thing I want to see is more taxes on the consumer. Let's tax the profits from oil companies to pay for military arms...

Do you know how much taxes the oil companies have already paid?

 

[Dominus Fidelis]

This clown has wrecked our economy:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4773315

$875 Billion for this pointless war in Iraq instead of spending it on alternative energy and mass transit development.