Always With the Gas
"Gasoline price gouging should be made a federal crime before the summer price increases hurt more American families."
From MoveOn.org:
Hearings start today on H.R. 1252, a House bill that would make gas price gouging a federal crime, punishable by 10 years in prison. Speaker Pelosi has said she'll move the bill to a vote this week—if there's the two-thirds majority required to fast track the bill through the process.
Oil company lobbyists are frantically trying to stop the bill. Your representative needs to hear from you today. Will you sign our petition asking Congress to pass the price-gouging bill—and then send it to your friends?
posted by kate @ 4:16 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Define "price gouging."
Also, is there a petition to lower the amount of Federal tax we pay on a gallon of gas? If there is I'll sign that.
How about a bill to enforce readily available fuel efficiency in our automobiles?
Let's treat the disease instead of the symptoms.
But hey, if MoveOn says it, it must be the right thing to do....
I went in the other day and they had an offer of a free lube job with every fill-up. When I paid, the clerk handed me a bottle of KY.
If people want the price of gas to go down, they need to stop buying it. Pure and simple, demand must decrease. Until it does, expect to pay more. I would imagine that as you move to Colorado, the cost of your commute will play a larger role than it did the last time you moved. Extrapolate that over the whole country and maybe things will begin to change Outside of a national emergency, charging what the market will bear is not gouging, and shouldn't be illegal.
RW as for lowering the tax on gas, I disagree it should be jacked up until people start to wake up and change their behavior. Either that or we should all invest in Exxon-Mobil.(Can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em)
>>RW as for lowering the tax on gas, I disagree it should be jacked up until people start to wake up and change their behavior.<<
Your realize that the gas tax is essentially the same as the sales tax, which is a tax on the poor, right? The wealthy can afford gas at a higher price, it's the poor who get taken to the cleaners with both sales tax and the tax on gas.
rw:Your realize that the gas tax is essentially the same as the sales tax, which is a tax on the poor, right?
And corporate profiteering isn't? The price is going up regardless.
Oil is a limited, strategically important resource that has been squandered for years. The invisible hand is only doing half the job, and will fail to properly guide the market before we see catastrophic results. It is not a sales tax, it is a consumption tax. The poor need to change petroleum consumption as much as anyone else. I share the distrust of government as much as the next, but at least some of those tax proceeds would find their way back to the people, whereas profits only go to the corporations(invest in Exxon-Mobil, it's the only way). The end result will be the same, but with taxes government could bring more predictable prices and guide the course of consumption. If done properly(again, I mistrust the government enough to know that some will profit at the expense of others, but some is bound to be available after) the money could be used to invest in alternatives. The problem with government isn't that it exists, it's that it's run by self-serving, fallible humans.
...whose only demonstrable skill might be getting elected.
>>And corporate profiteering isn't?<<
Not in the same manner, no.
Compare the amount of Federal and State tax on a gallon of gas to how much the corp is profiting off a gallon of gas and tell me which one makes more money per gallon. Gov't has no incentive to wish people would use less gas, they're making too much money. It's like the "sin taxes," they know people are going to drink and smoke, and they know the poor are the one's who'll be hurt the most with those types of taxes, but they don't care, they know they'll pay it anyway.
And I personally prefer private industry develop alternatives rather than the gov't. Something about that desire to create something and make boatloads of cash that cause humans to become innovative. If the gov't want's to help, then it should provide tax incentives that will allure more people to develop alternatives.
BTW, they passed the bill.
In another bill, the house is considering the outlawing of slaying dragons.
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rw- This is a rare instance where I'd have to agree with the White House that this bill is wrong. The language is ambiguous and a federal law is unnecessary when most states have passed gouging laws that are cleaner and more appropriate to regional circumstances of which Washington can't really encompass with a single law using vague language.
As for the other part, it's difficult to discuss it when you're attributing things to government the same things you're professing as a positive of industry. Government has problems yes, but ultimately they still work for us and are not in the business to keep prices high to reap the taxes. Ultimately they'll answer to their constituents, which is why we've seen this silly gouging bill. I'm sure you'll agree that the Republican's tax cut was a good thing, so not all government is bad. It;s just got bad people in it.
On the flip side a corporation is purely in the business of making as much profit as possible and has no incentive other than to keep the price as high as the market will bear. Government isn't in the business of innovating, but it does can promote innovation by throwing money at problems. Just remember the 60's and the Moon.
Eventually the free market would lead demand to diminish as prices increase provided we were talking about a commodity whose supply is dynamic and merely dependent on the ability to grow/mine/process it. However, petroleum is running out, and refining capacity is virtually tapped right now so the market may not adapt quickly enough to prevent catastrophe. Look at the mortgage sector, it's adjusting, but at the expense of rising forclosure rates and leaving a widening wealth gap between the haves and have-nots. Again there's a fine balance between social responsiblity and economic darwinism. One extreme or the other is undesirable, a communistic welfare state, or a Bourgeoisie/Proletariat dichotomous state.
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