Democrat Congressman Emanuel "Amen and Awoman" Cleaver of Missouri says just raise the gasoline tax, no one knows what it is anyways

That's the Democrat strategy on taxes from time immemorial in a nutshell. Multiply taxes and imbed them in everything so that there's so many of them you can't even list them all or realize that they've gone up.

The federal gasoline tax of $0.184 per gallon, however, is a universal tax, unlike state gasoline taxes which vary, obviously, and is displayed at every fuel station. It hasn't been raised since 1993. The tax started out at a penny in 1932. 

There is no excuse for not knowing what it is.

And there's no excuse for complaining the current tax doesn't take into account inflation since 1993. The inflation-adjusted tax from 1932 in 2019 is $0.19, so the current tax is just about on the money.

One problem with a fuel tax is that it is regressive, occupying a much larger place in the finances of hourly workers than it does in higher paid salaried workers. It's not fair.

Another is that since the early 1980s the fuel tax has been split between roads and "transit", as if the family vacation on the interstate system should fund the trains for the well-heeled commuters of America's metros.

Still another is . . . if deficits no longer matter, as is self-evident from the orgy of COVID relief spending, then why do taxes still matter?

They don't.

I say abolish the federal gas tax altogether.

There's strife in Iran

200,000 protesting fuel tax increases of 50% designed to pay for subsidies for 18 million poor. At least 143 killed. Perhaps 4,000 arrested.

731 banks, 140 government offices, 70 gas stations set ablaze.

50 internal security forces' bases attacked.

Reuters.

Maybe the rag-headed heathen bastards should stop funding nukes, rockets and terrorism instead.

Democrat Governor of MI Gretchen Whitmer lied to the voters in October 2016 when she denied she'd raise gasoline taxes by 20 cents a gallon

Yeah, she REALLY meant 45 cents, but couldn't win on that!

This weasel, similar to Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992, now says Gas tax hike 'not always my plan':

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called Tuesday for nearly tripling Michigan's per-gallon gas tax — and making the state home to the country's highest fuel taxes — in order to improve aging roads that she warned would only get worse without a major influx of new spending.

Whitmer's plan would increase the current 26-cents-per-gallon tax by 45 cents — going against what she said in a WOOD TV8 gubernatorial debate in October. When then-Republican nominee Bill Schuette said Whtimer wanted to increase the gas tax by 20 cents, she said that was "ridiculous" and "nonsense."

Insane new Democrat governor of Michigan wants to raise regressive gasoline tax to highest in the nation

Gov. Whitmer proposes raising gas tax by 45 cents to fund Michigan’s crumbling roads:

According to The Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit focused on tax policy, Michigan has the sixth highest gasoline tax nationally at 44.13 cents per gallon. The governor’s proposed 45-cent increase would push Michigan into the top spot, overtaking Pennsylvania’s current high of 58.7 cents per gallon.

Yellow Vest protests against high prices of essentials like fuel, electricity, food and water spread to Tel Aviv

Copycat protests are popping up everywhere, in some cases adapted to pre-existing political factions representing disparate issues such as marijuana legalization, which is hardly what it's about in France.

'YELLOW VEST' PROTESTERS SWARM THE STREETS OF TEL AVIV:

The movement which only started a week ago, in mid-December, in Israel, followed the wave of "yellow vest" protests in France that started in May 2018, mainly objecting the high coast of living and rising fuel prices. 

The Israeli copy has similar objectives- stop the rising electricity and water prices, which they believe will directly affect food prices.

The French government of Macron raised the fuel taxes causing the protests, socialist interior minister blames Marine Le Pen and the far right

Typical projection. Antifa in the US has been in constant violence mode since 2015 stirring up trouble and attacking Trump supporters and destroying property but everywhere you turn it is Trump and the far right which is said to be the cause of all the violence. These left wing lunatics are the same everywhere.

'This is the start of a revolution': Paris rioters steal police assault rifle, torch dozens of cars and vow to 'stay in the streets until Christmas' as fuel protests continue into the night and spread across France - and even to Holland:

Christophe Castaner, France's Interior Minister, said there would be identity checks and bag searches for all pedestrians in the Champs-Elysees area. 

Mr Castaner has blamed Marine Le Pen, leader of the Far Right National Rally party, for encouraging unsavoury elements to get involved in trouble. ... 

The movement, organised through social media, has steadfastly refused to align with any political party or trade union but has grown into a mass movement amid frustration at Macron's presidency. The 'yellow vests' include many pensioners and has been most active in small urban and rural areas where it has blocked roads, closed motorway toll booths, and even walled up the entrance to tax offices. Chantal, a 61-year-old pensioner who came from an eastern Paris suburb, said she was avoiding the 'hooligans' but was determined to send President Emmanuel Macron a message on the rising costs of living. 'He has to come down off his pedestal,' she said under cold rain on the Champs Elysees. 'Every month I have to dip into my savings.' The immediate trigger for the protest wave was Macron's decision to raise tax on diesel fuel in a move to encourage the driving of less-polluting cars.

To pay for highway bill, US House relies on selling strategic oil reserve and privatizing IRS employment instead of raising gasoline taxes

From the story here:

"The bill is in fact financed with a collection of offsets that many lawmakers find objectionable, such as raising $9 billion by selling oil from the country’s emergency oil reserves. Roughly $2.5 billion comes from requiring the Internal Revenue Service to use private debt collectors, reviving a controversial program opposed by many Democrats, consumer groups and the union that represents agency employees."

Michigan Republicans increase gasoline excises by 7.3 cents, taking the state from 12th to 5th for highest gas taxes paid in America

Here's the current list of highest combined federal and state gasoline taxes per gallon paid in the top paying states, from highest to lowest:

PA: 73.70 cents per gallon

WA: 62.90

NY: 62.67

HI: 61.55

CA: 59.32

CT: 55.91

FL: 54.82

NC: 54.65

WV: 53.00

RI: 52.40

NV: 52.25

MI: 52.24

IL: 51.87

IN: 51.70

WI: 51.30

GA: 51.02

MD: 50.50

IA: 50.40

ID: 50.40

The tax increase in Michigan will bring the current level to 59.54 cents, ahead of California!

Lest you tree-hugging electric and hybrid drivers think you'll escape, you get slapped with $100 and $30 surcharges (hahahahaha!), according to the story here, on licenses, the rest of us 20% increases:

"Registration fees for passenger vehicles and trucks would rise by 20 percent in 2017, meaning an average $100 bill would rise to $120. The state would also assess a new $100 annual surcharge on most electric vehicles and $30 on hybrids."

And you thought Republicans were against raising taxes.

Michigan's Sales Taxes On Fuel Aren't Spent On Roads!

Oi, just when you thought everything was so simply dissected, you find out it's not. It turns out that Michigan's sales tax on gasoline, distinct from its excise tax on gasoline, is by law earmarked for something other than roads, according to this story for mlive.com by Jonathan Oosting:

[A]ccording to Lance T. Binoniemi of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association, ... the state collects sales tax on fuel but does not earmark any of that revenue for roads.

"It's the biggest public policy problem we have," Binoniemi said today during a joint session of the Senate and House transportation committees. "The general public does not understand that the 6 percent tax does not go to funding roads and bridges. When you include that sales tax, we probably do have one of the highest (gas tax rates) in the nation." ...

Michigan is amongst a handful of states that levies a sales tax on motor fuel sales, but it does not dedicate any of that revenue to road funding. Most Michigan sales tax is constitutionally earmarked for schools and revenue sharing, while a small amount collected from fuel and automotive products is statutorily earmarked for public transportation. State law currently requires retailers to pre-pay sales tax on gasoline based on a projected per-gallon cost set quarterly (and soon, monthly) by the state Treasury. Those rates are based on the price after the federal excise tax but before the state excise tax.

Obviously one cannot simply substitute a general sales tax increase for a fuel tax increase and spend it all on roads when that increase as applied to fuel sales would sequester it and spend it on something else because the Michigan constitution requires it. Gov. Snyder doesn't really have much of a near term choice for increased road funding but to resort to an increase in the excise portion of the tax on fuel. Longer term the constitution would have to be amended, alas.

This is why one should not be amending the constitution for legislative purposes in the first place, an especially bad habit in Michigan where everyone wants to resort to that nuclear option for every pet project and crackpot idea. The result is chaos, confusion, unreason, inflexibility and disorder.

What's a legislature for if not to raise or reduce taxes and defend that at reelection time? Enshrining minutiae like what the 6% sales tax on fuel must be spent on in the constitution simply allows legislators to escape the political consequences of that allocation, which I'm guessing is why so much of Michigan politics seems to get shuffled off to the referendum process, otherwise known, at best, as direct democracy, at worst, as mob rule.

Pretty cowardly when you get down to it.

Sales Taxes Or Gasoline/Diesel Taxes, You Decide.

What you won't realize from this story, "What does an additional penny of gas tax buy in Michigan?" by Amy Lane for mlive.com, is how regressive are the fuel taxes which Michigan motorists pay compared to sales taxes.

From the story we are told:  

For each penny of gas or diesel tax, Michigan gets about $45 million for transportation funding needs that include roads. ...

A penny of Michigan sales tax brings in about $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion.

Well, just how many pennies are we really talking about in each case?

When you buy a gallon of gasoline, Michigan collects 38.7 pennies. But when you buy two fifty cent rolls of toilet paper, Michigan collects just 6 pennies. In the latter case, your tax rate is 6%, but in the former it works out to more like 12%, double the rate. Does that make any sense?

The driver of the $35,000 SUV can probably well afford it without thinking twice, but not the driver of the Ford Focus, whom the regressive fuel tax hurts more because he's probably making a lot less than the SUV driver.

If it's true Michigan collects $45 million per penny of current fuel taxes, that means that times the 38.7 pennies Michigan is already collecting, $1.74 billion is currently available from motor fuel taxes for roads and transportation. The sales tax, on the other hand, is bringing in over $7 billion at the much lower rate, and everyone is paying it. A simple 1.5 cent increase in the sales tax could eliminate the need for the fuel tax altogether. A 2 cent increase could provide an additional $660 million for roads. To get that from a gas tax increase, you would have to hike the gasoline tax per gallon by 15 cents, which is what Gov. Snyder wants to do, plus a little more, but which punishes the little guy even more.

Against those who say road users should bear the burden of road maintenance, I say everyone who buys goods is a road user. Well over 80 percent of everything we purchase moves by road. If you don't drive, you are being subsidized by those who do everytime you buy something which moves by road, which is just about everything.    

Gov. Snyder Is Nuts: Gas Taxes In Michigan Are Already 6th Highest In America

Michigan in January 2013 had the SIXTH highest overall gasoline taxes in the nation, and Gov. Snyder is talking about raising them higher still to fix the roads. He is quite clearly nuts.

The excise tax on gasoline is already double the rate you would pay in sales tax on a box of Kleenex or a roll of toilet paper and is one of the most regressive taxes in the state and in the country. The excise tax on gasoline penalizes the working poor the most who depend on their cars to get to their crummy jobs, if they are lucky enough to have one. And Governor Snyder only wants to make it worse.

Here are the top six states for combined federal, state, and local gasoline taxes as of January 2013:

New York:   69.0 cents per gallon

California:   67.1 cents

Hawaii:        65.5 cents

Connecticut: 63.4 cents

Illinois:         57.5 cents

Michigan:     57.1 cents.

The federal portion EVERYWHERE is fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon, so that means Michigan already takes 38.7 cents out of your pocket every time you put a gallon of gas in your car.

Today's average price for gasoline in Michigan is $3.743, meaning the base price at the pump is $3.172, including all profits and costs before the taxes are applied. That means the federal tax of 18.4 cents represents a federal excise tax on gas of 5.8%, and that your Michigan excise tax on gasoline is a whopping 12.2%, more than twice the sales tax rate of 6%. The average sales tax nationwide is just 5.04%.

Michigan is one state which bears the full brunt of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, resulting in road workers getting top dollar. Funny how we have some of the worst roads in the country in exchange for that. Maybe the governor should spend more time trying to figure that out before picking the taxpayers pockets again.

If the country needs anything, it is a tax cut on gasoline. The national average tax is 48.8 cents a gallon. Backing out the federal portion, that means the states on average are taking 9.3% on gasoline, a tax rate 85% higher than the average state sales tax rate.

State Gasoline Taxes Today Represent Almost 10% Of The Cost

Gasoline taxes in January 2013 are averaging $.488 per gallon nationally. That's up slightly, about 1.5%, from January 2011 when taxes averaged $.481 per gallon nationally.

The average gallon in the last five observations of spot prices of refined product ready for shipment has an actual cost $2.614. This yields an average expected price nationally of $3.102, whereas today's current national average is $3.267, meaning the local gas station's profit per gallon cannot be any more than about $.165 per gallon because he pays out of that a mark-up to the supplier for his profit and delivery costs.

Whatever else may be said about how much profit is buried in the spot price accruing to the oil companies and the refiners, the distributors and retailers are fighting for profits from just 5% of the cost of a gallon, whereas government from top to bottom takes a 15% cut, for doing absolutely nothing.

And the roads in this country still suck.

The federal cut alone is 5.6% of the cost of gasoline today, $.184 per gallon everywhere, but the states' cut is a whopping 9.3% on average. Compare that to the current average of state sales tax rates nationwide, which is just 5.04%. On average everyone who fills up at the gas station is paying 85% more in taxes to state government for that product than would be paid on toilet paper.

That doesn't make any sense!

Tell Us, Governor, Why Don't You Care For 47% Of The Country?

Last question of the second presidential debate, picked by Candy Crowley, a hanging curve ball for the president:

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, I want to introduce you to Barry Green, because he's going to have the last question to you first.

ROMNEY: Barry? Where is Barry?

QUESTION: Hi, Governor. I think this is a tough question. To each of you. What do you believe is the biggest misperception that the American people have about you as a man and a candidate? Using specific examples, can you take this opportunity to debunk that misperception and set us straight? ...


CROWLEY: Mr. President, last two minutes belong to you.



OBAMA: ... 

I believe Governor Romney is a good man. Loves his family, cares about his faith. But I also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country considered themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about.

Folks on Social Security who've worked all their lives. Veterans who've sacrificed for this country. Students who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams, but also this country's dreams. Soldiers who are overseas fighting for us right now. People who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don't make enough income. ...

Due To Low Taxes On Fuel, USA Ranks Among Nations With Lowest Price Per Gallon

US fuel taxes, state and federal combined, average about 50 cents per gallon. Fuel taxes in much of Europe are four, five, and six times higher than in the USA, typically running from $2.00 to $3.00 per gallon.

Prices in the table reflect conditions prevailing around the world in early April 2012 when prices were at their most recent highs.

(source)

Fuel Taxes In Developed World 4 To 6 Times Higher Per Gallon Than In USA

Fuel taxes in 2010 were 6 or more times higher per gallon than in the US in places such as Turkey, Germany, Britain, Finland, and France.

5 times higher in Italy, Ireland and Sweden.

4 times higher in Spain, South Korea, Japan and Poland.