September 27, 2007

WE'RE NOT THAT HYSTERICAL YET:

Congressman John Dingell Proposes 50-cent Gas Tax Hike to Fight Global Warming (Fox News, September 27, 2007)

Dealing with global warming will be painful, says one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. To back up his claim he is proposing a recipe many people won't like — a 50-cent gasoline tax, a carbon tax and scaling back tax breaks for some home owners.

"I'm trying to have everybody understand that this is going to cost and that it's going to have a measure of pain that you're not going to like," Rep. John Dingell, who is marking his 52nd year in Congress, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Dingell will offer a "discussion draft" outlining his tax proposals on Thursday, the same day that President Bush holds a two-day conference to discuss voluntary efforts to combat climate change.

But Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that will craft climate legislation, is making it clear that he believes tackling global warming will require a lot more if it is to be taken seriously.


All you have to do is listen to the reactions to see no one takes it seriously. However, gasoline and carbon taxes offset by income tax cuts would be economically, as well as environmentally, sensible.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 27, 2007 7:09 AM
Comments

No one takes global warming seriously because it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

Posted by: b at September 27, 2007 2:02 PM

Just another example of how all the programs the Left has been advocating for decades just happen to be the ideal solutions for so-called Global Climate Warming Change. You'd think they'd at least update the "Fifty Cent" to account for a couple of decades worth of inflation.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at September 27, 2007 2:44 PM

I've noticed high gas taxes don't do anything for innovation or the environment (look to Europe - where are all those cool, trendy electric vehicles, clean burning fuel vehicles? Diesel's still just oil/gas, so that doesn't count).

Posted by: KRS at September 27, 2007 3:39 PM

Indeed, the average European drives far less than the average American. If all gas taxes did was give us back a decent rail network they'd be worth it.

Posted by: oj at September 27, 2007 6:39 PM

And John Dingell representing the auto making areas of southeastern Michigan means...

That this is a way to fight the global warming crowd by pointing out to consumers that what they want will have a price and that price isn't going to come out of the withholding tax that they all forget about.

Well done, Rep. Dingell.

Posted by: Mikey [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 27, 2007 6:57 PM

Anything that makes us more like Europe and Japan sounds good to me. I hear they have smaller, but more equally distributed incomes and universal health care, too.

Posted by: Randall Voth at September 27, 2007 8:00 PM
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