Gas and Tax

There are early discussions in NY of the state govt suspending the state tax it collect on each gallon of fuel. If pushed through the temporary bill could save consumer 30 cents on avg at the pump. When and how do state governments make decisions on these things. When is enough.....enough?

NY probably considered it would save more by cutting 30 cents tax per gallon of gasoline in the near future versus the cost in the increase of future Welfare claims the higher gas prices would cause people to apply for.

Seriously, state (and Federal) government can (and do) change tax rates as needed at any time. This is just a good example of how it works in the consumer's favor for a change.

Just don't be suprised if state sales, income or property taxes rise by a small percentage to make up the difference down the road. ;)

Dingo,
Oh...I know they are going to get it back somehwere......a couple years back the county I live in capped its tax on gas.......funny how my property taxes went up as well. Why give what looks like a break if they are going to take it from somewher else.....its a complete wash.

To a large degree, it is to appease the voters. This tax stimulus package (tax rebates) will be a wash, too, but it may very well stimulate some voters to change their outlook come November.

Not having a demographics chart in front of me, I figure that most up-front tax cuts generally affect lower income families (let's be honest, the top 15% either have their taxes in a row, or their accountants, etc. do, at the very least). So, we have a lot of lower-class voters (and non-voters who may be swayed to register) who receive a nice check from Uncle Sam and the political party who happens to be in office (the GOP - again). As we saw in the last two presidential elections, enough votes can make up for any amount of lost ballot chads.

As far as your local gas taxes, the story is similar. It is just another way to buy votes. If the taxes are a wash in the long run, it was a cheap purchase.

This is just my opinion and I have no party affiliation in regards to this post, or otherwise.

Dingo,
I just know that my wife and I are middle class folks. Young (our avg age 29 years), 90k combined income, financing a home, paying down combined 33k school loans at an avg interest rate of 2.6%, putting away for retirement, trying to save a bit here, etc. etc. We feel the pinch pretty hard right now. Even though we have 'recession' proof jobs so to say (both in education).......we feel pinched month to month. I just think folks need a real break and not a ploy to get votes....I believe in the freedoms of this country.....but I don't beleive that my neighbor should be able to own and fuel 5 suv's at 4 dolars a gallon. What about the good of the all. If someone can live the lifestyle of the rich and famous......they ought to be taxed out the ass!!!! That i my opinion is not happening.

I don't beleive that my neighbor should be able to own and fuel 5 suv's at 4 dolars a gallon. What about the good of the all. If someone can live the lifestyle of the rich and famous......they ought to be taxed out the ass!!!! That i my opinion is not happening.
You are right, that is not happening. In actuality, their extra consumption is helping increase oil and fuel prices.

In my opinion, the US government should pay willing cities money to build between six and a dozen new oil refineries across the country. The economy would really be stimulated with the thousands of new jobs as well as a way to process more fuel at a cheaper cost to the consumer.

I'll admit that the tax structure is out of whack to some extent, and that wealthier persons seem to be getting inordinate breaks. The gap between the rich and the middle class is growing, as the rich get richer, while we stay stagnant or actually become poorer as the cost of living increases.

What's pinching me right now is food. The price of eggs have doubled just in the last year, and milk has doubled over the past three or four years. We used to get chicken quarters for 19 cents a pound, and now it's on sale at 59 cents -- triple the price! I hear now that there may be a worldwide rice shortage, which means many will starve to death, since rice is the staff of life in many parts of the world.

IF the root cause of all this hardship -- food, gas prices, etc -- is the price of oil/transportation, then it seems to me a no-brainer that we get off oil as rapidly as possible. Unless, of course, all our employers want to raise our salaries, to keep up with price inflation?

Until the price of oil increases to the point where it can make economic sense to use an alternative energy source, we won't be getting off of oil any time soon. Pray for higher oil prices. :(

Oil has, what, tripled in four years? At this rate, we'll have our 401(k) and HELOC debit cards maxed out just to feed our families and power our cars and homes in the next 36 months.

And yet other than griping about it most people haven't significantly changed their behavior. That's because oil and gas are still relatively too cheap.

The United States of America has caused most of all of the problems that are talked about on this thread. We have become a very spoiled nation.......we brim with fat, lazy, self-centered citizens. I know there are decent people in this country....but we have taken a turn for the worse. Everyone thought ethanol was going to save us.....so what happens.....we and other nations following our lead overproduce corn. The harvests rot to this day in storage faciliites accross the world. This overproduction leads to an underproduction of wheat and rice.....which leads to starvation and inflated food prices. No solid plan in place....just a get-rich-quick scheme that fell short....We believe and lead others to believe that we will discover an alternative fuel source that will replace oil.....a panacea if you will. What we should be doing is managing the resources we have more responsibily. There should be minimum mpg requirements for every vehicle that rolls off the assembly line.. We think we should never have to change.....and that something will take the place of what we used to have.

And yet other than griping about it most people haven't significantly changed their behavior. That's because oil and gas are still relatively too cheap.


Actually.....

I purchased a hybrid car back when gas spiked after Katrina. Best "investment" ever, since the car lot didn't really know what it had on its hands (Hybrid? Huh? Nobody will want that!) I argued with the guy for a week before he gave me the price I wanted. It has even held more of its value than its non-Hybrid model. Since I drive 100 miles to work (one way) it was a no-brainer. So, I passed along my 8000 lbs SUV to my husband, who drives a mere 2 miles (one way) to work. He fills his tank once every three or four months. We sold his truck.

I already live in a part of the country where my house is powered by hydroelectric dam. We have been considering installing solar panels, but as no one on our grid has them, the utility will still charge us the basic rate, and won't credit any accummulated power back to the grid and pay us for it, as they do elsewhere. Also, the tax incentives aren't enough, and a solar-paneled home in rural South Georgia won't add value to the home, either. Maybe that will be later on down the line.

I don't know how you Yanks do it, with your oil heaters. Can you not convert your homes to straight-electricity? Is it not cost effective to do so?

We are also reducing the number of trips we take -- we usually visit family at least once a month, but we're scaling that back drastically (not the least because my husband's mother has cancer, and she may need us later, when the chemo gets to be too bad).

And since I live in Georgia, we have reduced our water usage, too. As water-hogging plants die, I'm replacing them with xeriscape plants, which are natural to my area and require less water.

Finally, we are growing more aware of the environmental cost of using plastics. We have stopped purchasing bottled water and other plastic containers. We try to buy products that aren't "overpackaged" with those horrid molded plastic wrappers that you can't open anyway. Plastics are made from petroleum, and they never biodegrade, so by reducing plastic purchases, we get an environmental and financial double whammy there!

I'll admit, some of our petroleum-reduction efforts have been provided for us -- the house has copper piping instead of petroleum laden PVC, and our hydroelectric utility provider, for example. It just makes us want to do more. Now that our fence needs to be replaced, we are considering our options, both for reducing our carbon footprint, and for using less petroleum -- wood is natural, but has to be trucked in, if we buy it from Home Depot, but if we buy planks from a local mill and cut them ourselves, the lumber is all local!; plastic is durable, but it's petroleum based; wrought iron is expensive, but durable and lovely; and if it's really all for the dog, why not consider one of those buried electric fence thingies?

People think it's all about parking your car, when really it's about every aspect of our lives. If you don't want to park your car, at least buy locally grown produce, instead of produce from across the country, or across the globe; or when it's time to replace parts of your home, choose the local resources that are not petroleum based; or get a water filter and ditch the plastic-bottled water; and when it's time to move, choose a location that offers a renewable-energy utility (water or wind power, for example), rather than a fossil-fuel utility (coal or oil); consider natural hardwood floors when it's time to replace your flooring, rather than carpet (which are made of synthetic (read "plastic") materials) -- but choose your hardwood floors wisely, like a nice, locally produced oak or pine, rather than some rare, shipped-in Brazililan This, or Indonesian That; and when you shop, bypass the plastic wrapped foods, and the plastic-encased consumer goods, and avoid the plastic children's toys, and go for what's paper wrapped, cardboard encased, open and free, or made from natural, renewable materials.

Sorry, didn't mean for this to turn into a diatribe. But when you look around any room you are in at this very moment, look around and see how many of your things are plastic, or were sold to you in a plastic wrapper? Plastic is petroleum based -- oil! -- and is part and parcel of the problems we are having today, both financial and environmental. I'm sitting in an office filled with books and papers, with real-wood desks provided by the school, and an ancient filing cabinet used by generations of teachers before me. but the seats are covered in plastic (vinyl), and my computer and printer are encased in plastic. All but one of my pens are plastic (a lovely heavy metal job was a graduation gift from my husband). The spiral binding on a workbook provided by a bookseller is plastic. The covers of my gradebooks are plastic. The few snacks I have in a drawer are wrapped in plastic. And yet, in a room with a total of more than one thousand items (700 of which are books) less than 5% of those items have plastic in them. That's probably pretty good! -- it's a much better rate than my kitchen or bathroom, that's for sure!

Puck,
You make some great reccomendations and I commend you for the changes you have made in your lifestyle that help stave off the vicious cycle. Just to clear some things up. We yanks wish it was as easy as converting our entire house to electric heat. If this is what it took all of us with half a brain would do it. My homes primary heating system is electric basboard units. We have owned the home for three year now. We have never turned the electric heat on once. Why? Heating your home with electricity cost twice as much as heating it with oil or gas. That is a misconception that many have. People think that electricity is cheaper than oil or gas. Flat out untrue. MY wife and I heat our home with a coal stove. We have a 6 to 7 month heating season here in New York. My wife and I burned about a ton and a half of coal. The cost was 470 bucks for the entire winter. If we had heated with our electric system the cost would have been two to three times that amount. Coal is as clean as oil.....but much less in cost. Just wanted to clear things up. This thread is getting really interesting. Enjoy hearing from everyone. Thanks

Yikes! Then your electricity costs a fortune in winter! By my math, your heat cost between $67 and $78 a month, which is what I pay for all my electricity and heat during winter! (and yes, we use heat in winter!) Of course, we pay more in summer, because of the drain AC units put on the grid -- my 2200 sq ft house runs about $100-$175/mo in summer, with the highest figures in July and August, when the AC runs almost continuously, even at night.

We get the best of both worlds up her in the NE Puck. During the winter, heating/electric for a newer, efficient home in the 2500 SqFt. range is well over $300 per month. There is a slight reprieve during the months of April & May with mild temps and then its back to the $200-$300 range for AC energy during June, July, August and well into September. October can swing either way, but by Novemeber we are surely back to heating the house full time. My bill for the last 2 months $643.

That's Natural Gas heat, hot water, appliances (doesn't have anyhting to do with oil prices, but mysteriously mirrors them). In the summer it's all electric for central AC. And trust me it's conservative use, the house is kept at about 64 during the winter and 72 during the summer.

All in all, I think the tally for my rolling 12 months is around $2600.

As a point of ecological contention:

One of the most efficient sources (renewable too) of heating energy in the NE is wood and high efficiency wood furnaces that can burn one load of wood in a 16 hour cycle and keep the entire house, including water warm during the winter months.

Well, guess what? NY State eco-laws make it incredibly hard to get one approved beacuse they release particulate into the air (smoke). This legislation stems not from science, but primarily from neighbors and busy-bodies that complain about the smell of smoke in their neighborhoods. They are most likely the same people who will brag that they recycled a bag of plastic last month. If you live anywhere near civilization, you can just about forgot about burning wood in one of these high-efficiency furnaces.

Ironically, just about anyone can have a wood stove installed. However, you would have to burn wood on a 2-4 hour cycle (load time) with one of these and you could easily consume at least one, maybe two tri-axle truckloads of logs over the course of a winter season. And of course, they produce smoke.

Price -- I think I'm going to faint, over those prices. I wonder -- are you on a fossil-fuel utility system, or a water/wind (natural) utility? I'd be interested to hear from NE-ers who are on both, to see who has cheaper rates. I don't know if my rates are because of the hydroelectric dam, or my region. I know my Dad pays twice as much in Florida, where he's on a coal utility.

Price -- that's a good point about wood (and since I'm from a state whose number one crop is trees, I'm going to cheer for the team!). I understand about the smell and particulates involved in wood burning, but if a huge plant can install an air scrubber on their smokestacks, why can't some inventive soul make a small, economically viable one for small furnaces?

I've lived in houses warmed by electric, gas, oil, and wood, and the warmth you get from wood (and natural gas, too!) just feels "warmer" than other sources. Don't ask me why, but it does!

There should be minimum mpg requirements for every vehicle that rolls off the assembly line.

Government is not the answer to the problem, Capitalism is. Blixet is dead on when he points out that it’s just not cost effective yet to find an alternative fuel source. You don’t heat your house with electricity because of cost. What will it take to get you to change? My guess would be cost.

I've lived in houses warmed by electric, gas, oil, and wood, and the warmth you get from wood (and natural gas, too!) just feels "warmer" than other sources. Don't ask me why, but it does!

I was raised in the NE in a house whose primary heat source was wood. Like you Puck I now live in GA. We enjoy having fires in the wintertime but I would never want to go back to having wood as my primary source of heat. It seems to suck the moisture out of the air more than any other source. When visiting my parents I still find the air in their house to be very uncomfortable, and yes they have a humidifier.

I have a little portable AC unit I roll into the living room during the summer. Run it a couple hours a day during peak heat times, maybe 3 or 4 weeks per year. Run a natural gas wall heater in the winter for a few minutes in the AM in the dead of winter, maybe have the pilot lit for 2 months, use it almost not at all. Ah, Southern California climate!

I wonder -- are you on a fossil-fuel utility system, or a water/wind (natural) utility?
Our provider is predominantly natural gas.

The provider produces about 85% of their own electricity using gas turbines and hydroelectric. The ratio of this production is about 66% gas turbine and 34% hydro. The rest of the electric power is conracted with nuclear facilities to include Three Mile Island and Indian Point.

Oil-based energy is purchased wholesale and natural gas is piped in and contracted as well.