Monday, May 29, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
possible heresy
Ok, everyone knows that I'm a pretty fire-breathing conservative, so what I'm about to suggest my sound strange comming from my mouth.
I want to impose a tax on gas.
You see, my head is full of nonsense after so many finals, but I have been thinking about this for a while, so I've got a plan worked out.
There are two major problems that could be fixed (partially fixed, anyway) by a tax on oil. Everyone is talking about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels to save us from global warming. (Problem 1)
It is also common knowledge that we've spent too much money, actually we've borrowed too much money, and we need to pay it back.(Problem 2)
No one wants to cut down on car trips, so we need to provide a powerful incentive to use less gas and oil. We drive way too much, and our cars could be more fuel efficient using current technology if there was enough demand for that. Plus, we heat our houses too much (I live in Maine, and I know it gets cold, but I also know that we don't need to live in 75 degree temps inside our houses and schools all winter). A tax would artificially raise the price and give people an incentive to cut down.
Likewise, people don't want to give up any of the services that our government provides. I could talk about getting rid of welfare and controling the cost of government services until I was blue in the face, and still no one would listen to me. And if we raise normal taxes, the politicians would just spend it on more services rather than paying down out debt. So, we need a new tax source that would only pay for one thing. It could be written into the law that imposed the tax, so that the money wouldn't be able to pay for anything else, and we could introduce time limits or conditions that would eliminate the tax after we paid down the debt (in a million years) or we could use it for something else later. I'd like to get rid of it as soon as possible, however.
These two goals get met from a tax on gas. There are, however, several ways that we could set it up so that it appears less painful to consumers and also brings in a respectable amount of money.
I just got done taking microeconomic theory (the second year of micro at my school), so I've got several ideas that might work. The main thing to keep in mind is that we're going to be taxing barrels of oil, not gallons of gas at the pump. This has a few benefits not immediately apparent. First, it's a tax on "The Evil Corporations" (I'm saying that with as much sarcasm as I can put into a blog post). It really doesn't matter if we put the tax on the corporations or the consumers because the consumers will end up paying for it anyway (unless the oil industry is a perfect monopoly, which it isn't quite, but that's too much detail for this post), but the liberals will feel good about a tax on corporations, and most people won't be so mad about a new tax on people that isn't them (even though prices will be raised and they'll be paying for the tax anyway). A secondary reason we should tax the oil and not the gas is that we'll hit the whole industry, and not just joe schmoes at the pump. This will reduce consumption of all oil products, and raise tax revenue from many more sources, thus paying down our debt that much faster.
I have two proposals for how to implement the tax, and I'd like to hear some opinions about them.
Proposal 1
We put a 10% or $5 tax on each barrel of oil, whichever is less. For prices over $50 dollars a barrel, we would pay a tax of five dollars, and for prices under that, we would pay less so that it's a smaller ammount of money to be paid at the pump. One barrel of oil is 42 gallons of oil. (there are other interesting facts there, as well) If we refine that into gas, we can get about 28 gallons that will drive your car (depending on the quality of the oil), but many products (like motor oil) can be produced with the leftovers, so lets just say that one barrel of oil will turn into 42 gallons at the pump so that we can see the effect on gas prices, because we know that prices for the rest of the oil derivatives will jump as well and add to our debt paying coffers.
If oil costs $50 a barrel, gas would cost about $1.19 (if we ignore mark-ups and stuff for the moment. KISS). The tax would add about $0.12 (regardless of the mark-ups). This is a pretty steep jump (10 %), but we're trying to reduce consumption here. The US uses about 20 million barrels a day, so this would give us $2,400,000 in revenue each day. The US debt is about 8,344,459,609,733, so we'd pay down the debt in about 3,476,858 days, or about 1000 years. (Obviously we're going to need to do some other things here...)
*I used 50 dollars a barrel for simplicities sake, and with prices currently about 75 dollars, we'd make a little more money each day. (about 18 cents a gallon)
The pros: this doesn't hurt our pocket books as much, but it won't change behavior as quickly. It also will take a damn long time to pay down the debt.
Proposal 2
This one would hurt more, but it would be more effective. We could set it up so that we'd pay 5 dollars or 10%, whichever is greater. For prices less than $50 a barrel, we'd earn exactly as much money as before, but the percentage of the price would be greater (hurt more and better at changing behavior) for prices less than $50. We'd earn a lot more money at prices greater than fifty dollars, so there would be an extra incentive to cut down on oil consumption just when our arab and venezuelan friends are getting more money.
So, which proposal do you like more? And, do you think the whole thing is worth doing? Did I screw anything up? Let me know in the comments.
Side note -> this tax obviously doesn't have to pay for the debt. I just picked that because it is probably my biggest underfunded concern at the moment, aside from Social Security. And paying for people's retirement using a tax on oil just doesn't make sense to me. We could use the money to pay for a fence on our border (if people really want to do that), or we could set it up as the "Porker's Pile" and let congress spend only the gas tax money on pork projects, and once the money is gone for the year, no more pork. But to do that last one, we'd need to make it a much smaller tax.
Also, please notice that the numbers I suggest obviously aren't final, we can scale them up or down...I'll let the wonks decide what's the best level of tax.
One more thing, this tax would make more sense (in the big picture) if we moved away from an income tax towards a sales tax. I like a sales tax because it's not a tax on my labor, it's a tax on what I choose to consume. It just works better with my ideals...but that's a different debate, and this post is long enough.
I want to impose a tax on gas.
You see, my head is full of nonsense after so many finals, but I have been thinking about this for a while, so I've got a plan worked out.
There are two major problems that could be fixed (partially fixed, anyway) by a tax on oil. Everyone is talking about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels to save us from global warming. (Problem 1)
It is also common knowledge that we've spent too much money, actually we've borrowed too much money, and we need to pay it back.(Problem 2)
No one wants to cut down on car trips, so we need to provide a powerful incentive to use less gas and oil. We drive way too much, and our cars could be more fuel efficient using current technology if there was enough demand for that. Plus, we heat our houses too much (I live in Maine, and I know it gets cold, but I also know that we don't need to live in 75 degree temps inside our houses and schools all winter). A tax would artificially raise the price and give people an incentive to cut down.
Likewise, people don't want to give up any of the services that our government provides. I could talk about getting rid of welfare and controling the cost of government services until I was blue in the face, and still no one would listen to me. And if we raise normal taxes, the politicians would just spend it on more services rather than paying down out debt. So, we need a new tax source that would only pay for one thing. It could be written into the law that imposed the tax, so that the money wouldn't be able to pay for anything else, and we could introduce time limits or conditions that would eliminate the tax after we paid down the debt (in a million years) or we could use it for something else later. I'd like to get rid of it as soon as possible, however.
These two goals get met from a tax on gas. There are, however, several ways that we could set it up so that it appears less painful to consumers and also brings in a respectable amount of money.
I just got done taking microeconomic theory (the second year of micro at my school), so I've got several ideas that might work. The main thing to keep in mind is that we're going to be taxing barrels of oil, not gallons of gas at the pump. This has a few benefits not immediately apparent. First, it's a tax on "The Evil Corporations" (I'm saying that with as much sarcasm as I can put into a blog post). It really doesn't matter if we put the tax on the corporations or the consumers because the consumers will end up paying for it anyway (unless the oil industry is a perfect monopoly, which it isn't quite, but that's too much detail for this post), but the liberals will feel good about a tax on corporations, and most people won't be so mad about a new tax on people that isn't them (even though prices will be raised and they'll be paying for the tax anyway). A secondary reason we should tax the oil and not the gas is that we'll hit the whole industry, and not just joe schmoes at the pump. This will reduce consumption of all oil products, and raise tax revenue from many more sources, thus paying down our debt that much faster.
I have two proposals for how to implement the tax, and I'd like to hear some opinions about them.
Proposal 1
We put a 10% or $5 tax on each barrel of oil, whichever is less. For prices over $50 dollars a barrel, we would pay a tax of five dollars, and for prices under that, we would pay less so that it's a smaller ammount of money to be paid at the pump. One barrel of oil is 42 gallons of oil. (there are other interesting facts there, as well) If we refine that into gas, we can get about 28 gallons that will drive your car (depending on the quality of the oil), but many products (like motor oil) can be produced with the leftovers, so lets just say that one barrel of oil will turn into 42 gallons at the pump so that we can see the effect on gas prices, because we know that prices for the rest of the oil derivatives will jump as well and add to our debt paying coffers.
If oil costs $50 a barrel, gas would cost about $1.19 (if we ignore mark-ups and stuff for the moment. KISS). The tax would add about $0.12 (regardless of the mark-ups). This is a pretty steep jump (10 %), but we're trying to reduce consumption here. The US uses about 20 million barrels a day, so this would give us $2,400,000 in revenue each day. The US debt is about 8,344,459,609,733, so we'd pay down the debt in about 3,476,858 days, or about 1000 years. (Obviously we're going to need to do some other things here...)
*I used 50 dollars a barrel for simplicities sake, and with prices currently about 75 dollars, we'd make a little more money each day. (about 18 cents a gallon)
The pros: this doesn't hurt our pocket books as much, but it won't change behavior as quickly. It also will take a damn long time to pay down the debt.
Proposal 2
This one would hurt more, but it would be more effective. We could set it up so that we'd pay 5 dollars or 10%, whichever is greater. For prices less than $50 a barrel, we'd earn exactly as much money as before, but the percentage of the price would be greater (hurt more and better at changing behavior) for prices less than $50. We'd earn a lot more money at prices greater than fifty dollars, so there would be an extra incentive to cut down on oil consumption just when our arab and venezuelan friends are getting more money.
So, which proposal do you like more? And, do you think the whole thing is worth doing? Did I screw anything up? Let me know in the comments.
Side note -> this tax obviously doesn't have to pay for the debt. I just picked that because it is probably my biggest underfunded concern at the moment, aside from Social Security. And paying for people's retirement using a tax on oil just doesn't make sense to me. We could use the money to pay for a fence on our border (if people really want to do that), or we could set it up as the "Porker's Pile" and let congress spend only the gas tax money on pork projects, and once the money is gone for the year, no more pork. But to do that last one, we'd need to make it a much smaller tax.
Also, please notice that the numbers I suggest obviously aren't final, we can scale them up or down...I'll let the wonks decide what's the best level of tax.
One more thing, this tax would make more sense (in the big picture) if we moved away from an income tax towards a sales tax. I like a sales tax because it's not a tax on my labor, it's a tax on what I choose to consume. It just works better with my ideals...but that's a different debate, and this post is long enough.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Check out the Day by Day for today.
click on cartoon to email the link to a friend
He does the job Bush (and the Dem's) don't want him to.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Oh my!
I knew that the NYT was incompetent on military matters, but I didn't know how extremely true that was until I read this in op-for:
Well, all I can do with this information is to be even more skeptical about what I read in the NYT...I mean, they lie, they make stuff up...and they get really easy things wrong. Hmmm...
From the corrections section of yesterday's New York Times:
Well, all I can do with this information is to be even more skeptical about what I read in the NYT...I mean, they lie, they make stuff up...and they get really easy things wrong. Hmmm...
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Yadda Yadda Yadda
So, exams and all that, excuses excuses excuses, just like always for the past couple of months. Fortunately, some people have found better uses of their time than college...like writing blogs. And I found a new one, and it's a great one. I'm gonna link to a specific post, but I recomend you start from the top and read the whole front page...it's great. Especially where he talks about taxes and the economy.
The name of the blog is WILLisms...
The name of the blog is WILLisms...
Monday, May 08, 2006
Otherwise known as procrastination
Why is it so much easier to write when I'm blogging than when I'm writing a paper for class? And why is it even easier to blog while I'm supposed to be writing that paper (or sleeping)?
Anyway, did you notice my extreme jump in the TTLB rankings? I'm now a mortal human...it must be from joining up with the 101'st.
There should probably be a way to limit the effects of such a group...I mean, it's not like I earned my sudden fame, I just sent the Captain an e-mail. Maybe there's an easy way to weight the value of such links?
I mean, I love being a Large Mamal and all that, but it was much more exciting when I earned the links because of the posts I wrote...Not that I'm really going to snear at the extra traffic that I may or may not get.
Anyway, back to that paper that's due in a couple of hours...or maybe a quick nap. But those are so dangerous at this stage in the process, you know?
Anyway, did you notice my extreme jump in the TTLB rankings? I'm now a mortal human...it must be from joining up with the 101'st.
There should probably be a way to limit the effects of such a group...I mean, it's not like I earned my sudden fame, I just sent the Captain an e-mail. Maybe there's an easy way to weight the value of such links?
I mean, I love being a Large Mamal and all that, but it was much more exciting when I earned the links because of the posts I wrote...Not that I'm really going to snear at the extra traffic that I may or may not get.
Anyway, back to that paper that's due in a couple of hours...or maybe a quick nap. But those are so dangerous at this stage in the process, you know?
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Moussaoui
I figure most people have learned that the 13'th hijacker got life in jail instead of a death sentance.
I think that this is a good thing. I don't want the government to be able to hand out death sentances, definately not to it's citizens, and probably not to anyone tried in a civilian court. War is different. During war, the other guy can shoot back, and hopefully we've done everything we can to avoid a war before we have one.
But I think that the jury did the right thing when they gave Moussaoui a life sentance.
Now he will not be a martyr. He will also not be beyond our reach in the future...and he will not be able to cause any more harm.
I'm not advocating a life of comfort for this guy, but I don't think it's necessary to kill him. If the terrorists think it's weak to let him live, well, then I invite them to join him and see how much they like it. And since when did I start caring about how weak the terrorists thought I was?
Others disagree, and some agree...what do you think?
Update: Althouse quotes from a news article (she's got the link):
Ditto, and I do think life in jail is worse than a quick execution.
Update II: Moussaoui is obviously the 20'th hijacker, and I was obviously staring out into space (or otherwise distracted) when I wrote that (her name is...). I'm sorry for any confusion I caused...
I think that this is a good thing. I don't want the government to be able to hand out death sentances, definately not to it's citizens, and probably not to anyone tried in a civilian court. War is different. During war, the other guy can shoot back, and hopefully we've done everything we can to avoid a war before we have one.
But I think that the jury did the right thing when they gave Moussaoui a life sentance.
Now he will not be a martyr. He will also not be beyond our reach in the future...and he will not be able to cause any more harm.
I'm not advocating a life of comfort for this guy, but I don't think it's necessary to kill him. If the terrorists think it's weak to let him live, well, then I invite them to join him and see how much they like it. And since when did I start caring about how weak the terrorists thought I was?
Others disagree, and some agree...what do you think?
Update: Althouse quotes from a news article (she's got the link):
"In the case most comparable to Moussaoui's, the 2001 trial of four al-Qaeda members accused of blowing up U.S. embassies in East Africa, a federal jury in New York chose life in prison instead of death for the two defendants eligible for death. Ten jurors wrote on the verdict form that executing one of the men would make him a martyr, and five said life in prison would be a greater punishment.Let's hope it is."
Ditto, and I do think life in jail is worse than a quick execution.
Update II: Moussaoui is obviously the 20'th hijacker, and I was obviously staring out into space (or otherwise distracted) when I wrote that (her name is...). I'm sorry for any confusion I caused...
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
In other news, the sun still rises in the east
I'm still dealing with exams...give me about another three weeks and I'll be able to do some real blogging again.
I have three scheduled exams, (one of which will probably not be happening), and get this all three of them are on the only sunday during exam period. Three possible exam slots on sunday, and I get all three of them for my three classes...I know that I'm not being singled out here, because I know the people who make up the schedules, but it sort of feels that way...especially given the amount of complaining I do about the fact that my school schedules exams on Sunday.
I have three scheduled exams, (one of which will probably not be happening), and get this all three of them are on the only sunday during exam period. Three possible exam slots on sunday, and I get all three of them for my three classes...I know that I'm not being singled out here, because I know the people who make up the schedules, but it sort of feels that way...especially given the amount of complaining I do about the fact that my school schedules exams on Sunday.
Firefox vs IE
Despite the fact that my computer continues to be dead, I still use mostly firefox for my internet browsing. That browsing, of course, includes looking at my own site. This morning, however, I was forced to use IE...and it sucked. It totaly can't display this blog correctly...the sidebar gets bumped to the bottom, and there is no real reason why. It just can't handle the code, I guess.
Long and short of the story, get yourself Firefox...you can even click a button from my site to get it...it's on what should be the sidebar.
Long and short of the story, get yourself Firefox...you can even click a button from my site to get it...it's on what should be the sidebar.
Monday, May 01, 2006
I've joined up
As soon as I heard about this new group, I decided to enlist. I'm not a full-fledged member of the 101 Fighting Keyboardists. You should check out this FAQ from Frank J., and it can point you in the right direction if you want to join up yourself...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
