Bush concerned about rising gas costs

[Savaric]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354150,00.html

I love this part:
"We'll analyze some of these suggestions, but the key is that we think long-term for America, that we diversify away from oil and we're wise and build new refineries and increase supply for the American consumers," Bush said in the interview on the White House grounds with his wife, Laura.

Sounds a little contradictory, hmm. I also love how all of these candidates preach green technology and a movement away from oil, but nobody EVER mentions conservation. The U.S. consumes 3 times the oil of all of Europe. We don't need green miracles we need to curb the pig-like consumption. Yea, according to oil companies we should increase supply...

And I have moaned it a million times before. Note how he says, "American consumers." We are not consumers -- we are citizens. Nice little subtleness of how much big money influences our public officials.

[Blog]

IMO Bush is better than most politicians when it comes to oil/gas. At least Bush is consistent.

Plenty of politicians argue that gas prices are too high, oppose new drilling, and want windfall taxes on oil companies. Then they also say they want to fight global warming by reducing CO2 emissions, how are you going to do that and keep gas prices low?

[Rosuav]

He's concerned about the rising price of fuel? Strange, that. I think everyone is, save those who are in the industry of selling it.

Bush said the rising cost of gas "troubles me a lot" because it is "like a tax on the working people."

Oooh, is that shocking to him? That working-class people get taxed?

Fuel IS taxed, and quite heavily. I may have my figures slightly wrong, but it seems that about 50c out of the $3 or $3.50 you pay for a gallon of fuel is taxes - that is, one sixth (18%) or one seventh (14%) of your bill is tax. That's bad compared to other products, but on the world scale, you folks in the US actually have it pretty good. Here in Australia, it's about 50c/liter, or about 40%; in England, fully two thirds of the price paid goes to the government.

It's easy to sound concerned in public, Mr Bush.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Blog
IMO Bush is better than most politicians when it comes to oil/gas. At least Bush is consistent.

Plenty of politicians argue that gas prices are too high, oppose new drilling, and want windfall taxes on oil companies. Then they also say they want to fight global warming by reducing CO2 emissions, how are you going to do that and keep gas prices low?

Grumble. Kevin Rudd gets into power, and the first thing he does is ratify Kyoto. (And the second is to make this apology to the "stolen generation", which basically means his first two actions have been to swipe the public credit card twice.) Australia's CO2 emissions (by the way, it really annoys me when people who should know better talk about "carbon" all the time - carbon is a black solid, the gas that gets emitted is carbon dioxide, thankyouverymuch) are actually not that high, on a world scale; the Kyoto Agreement doesn't apply to China, and China is building new coal power plants at the rate of one a week or something. Mind you, I'm not too worried about that - it's doing Australia's economy a good turn (where's all their coal coming from? We have some highly productive mines in Queensland, and the coal trains are of epic dimensions), but I think it's pretty hypocritical to worry about Australia's CO2 emissions and ignore China and Japan.

By the way, is anyone else amused by (has anyone else seen?) the advertisements that show black balloons floating away, to represent carbon dioxide being given off? A CO2-filled balloon isn't going to rise unless you're underwater... yet for some reason, those balloons behave as though filled with helium!

[Gromgor]

Originally posted by Rosuav
He's concerned about the rising price of fuel? Strange, that. I think everyone is, save those who are in the industry of selling it.



Oooh, is that shocking to him? That working-class people get taxed?

Fuel IS taxed, and quite heavily. I may have my figures slightly wrong, but it seems that about 50c out of the $3 or $3.50 you pay for a gallon of fuel is taxes - that is, one sixth (18%) or one seventh (14%) of your bill is tax. That's bad compared to other products, but on the world scale, you folks in the US actually have it pretty good. Here in Australia, it's about 50c/liter, or about 40%; in England, fully two thirds of the price paid goes to the government.

It's easy to sound concerned in public, Mr Bush.

But we later get taxed for road repair costs and various other things that you don't get taxed as much for. We actually pay the same, if not more due to the weakening strength of the dollar than you do, despite the lower cost per gallon that we see at the pumps.

We use 3 times as much because America is a rich country that factored it's fuel consumption primarily after the taxes that you pay at the pumps were already taken from us. We didn't miss those dollars as much because we never saw them. They were never in our pockets. I remember when gas was $1.00 a gallon. It's now $3.50 a gallon. In my lifetime 350% increase. And that's AFTER the taxes that you pay at the pump are taken out of our paychecks.

[Jolen]

I remember when gas was $1.00 a gallon. It's now $3.50 a gallon. In my lifetime 350% increase.

I started driving in 2000 at 17 and I could get Regular for 89 cents at the Race track. I just finished driving Prodri's stuff down from Wisconsin and on average, gas was about 3.45 a gallon. In eight years, it has gone up almost 3 dollars. Meanwhile, minimum wage has remained roughly the same in that period of time. In fact, I believe it has not changed at all in Texas in this same time-frame ($5.15 an hour).

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Gromgor
But we later get taxed for road repair costs and various other things that you don't get taxed as much for. We actually pay the same, if not more due to the weakening strength of the dollar than you do, despite the lower cost per gallon that we see at the pumps.

Okay, that explains the differencce. Although my point was not that America's fuel tax is low - it's that fuel taxes are high everywhere (compare against the price of an apple, if you can find figures - the cost of growing and transporting that apple is far more than the taxes involved). The government absolutely SLAMS petroleum usage, partly so that tax breaks, rather than actual subsidies, can be given to whatever's being pushed at the moment (hybrid cars, biodiesel, etc), and partly to pay for a huge network of government-owned toll-free roads.

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, necessarily; toll roads, while good in concept (user pays, and all that), but the cost of operating a toll road is significant. However, it does take quite a lot of tax dollars to fund good roads.

[Aristotle]

Conservation is a nice idea, but honestly, humans don't solve problems through sacrifice and restraint. We solve problems through innovation. We overcome scientific or technological hurdles in order to achieve our ends.

When factories were belching out pollutants, we invented scrubbers.

When cars were getting 4 mpg, we improved them to now average closer to 20 mpg.

We tried getting people to turn off lights they weren't using, but that didn't work too well. CFL light bulbs have worked far better. LEDs may be an even greater improvement in that area.

We solve problems through technology and innovation. I honestly believe we would already have partially solved these problems if we had our focus there, instead of hopelessly trying to get people to willingly consume less, pollute less, drive less, etc.

[Gromgor]

What ever happened to that car that runs on water? From what I heard it passed all safety inspections and the designs were being bought by a company. Whether it was to market or to bury remains to be seen. It would be nice though.

[Katidyd]

The car that ran on water was outdone by the car that ran on piss.