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Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS
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If there was some way to guarantee that a tax, any tax went to what it was intended, I'd be more "pro tax." However history has shown that is not the case. Most of the time Legislator has left themselves enough room to hang the American People, or used creative writing so that we are worse off than we were before.

I present the classic argument for State Ran Lotteries. The proceeds (Taxation) will go to Education! Nope. Doesn't happen. It's a #%^$&^& Lie. In most cases it goes to the "General Fund" (Discretionary Fund) which is the same fund which Education is drawn from. Therefore it is going to the "Education Fund" (which doesn't really exist), however Education Budgets (actual money) never goes up because of Lottery Sales.

As a Consumption Tax (Tax based on the sale of an item, as opposed to income), these types of taxes disproportionately affect the lower income brackets. They "consume" more as a matter of necessity, and "save" less. The higher you are on the economy chain, the more you are able to leverage other avenues, and the less the burden becomes. In the US we "attempt" to reduce this by not taxing things like groceries, and offering the "standard deduction" which in theory will get most people back things like gas tax they already pay.... however, the more you add the harder it becomes day-to-day.

Furthermore, the taxation is not about "incentivizing" research. It's a revenue drive. Let's call a duck a duck. The North East states (Oregon, Washington) had a huge boost in Hybrid cars, which resulted in lost tax revenue. Their response was to start taxing "mileage" IN ADDITION TO, because they couldn't afford road maintenance.

Our Government cannot balance a budget. It runs perpetually in deficit and debt. Taxation on the citizen is how our Legislation "thinks" they are going to get this money back because they are primarily Lawyers not Economists.

This has nothing to do with "Oil" or "Clean Vehicles." It's about money.

The only way the American Public is going to switch to Hybrid or EV is if the "average cost" of Purchase PLUS Fuel (Over lifetime) becomes comparable. Right now Hybrid/EV's upfront cost makes them incomparable. It just takes too long to "break even." However, if you jack up the price of gas enough... ($.25/gallon WON'T do it) we get closer. ICE just has too far a lead. We're 5-10 years out because of things like infrastructure, "economies of scale" and just plain technology.
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SGT Jerrold Pesz
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Obama and the democrats never miss an opportunity to make the poor suffer.
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LTC Self Employed
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>1 y
You mean make the military, the oil industry and his legacy suffer by wanting to make a name for himself with projects that are focused on global warming and not on near- term threats like our enemies, Russia, China, ISIL, Iran an Pan-arab terrorism.
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CPT Mark Gonzalez
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This will disproportionally punish the poor. Poor people feel it at the pump and middle class at least notice the difference. A rich person cares a lot more about oil stocks dropping than the price to fill up their Tesla. On a side note I don't see poor people driving Tesla's.
The logic that the price is low let's add a tax has one major con in that the tax will still be in place if the price ever rises. Maybe the long term plan is to force more people into utilizing public transportation, but I think anything beyond a very minimal tax increase is a bad idea.
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SFC Ncoic
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I agree this would disproportionally punish the poor, and the middle class, they do not have the money to afford this new tax. What it will end up doing is create a new burden on the poor which would then eventually lower the threshold of the poor, making it more difficult for the poor to budget their way out of being so poor, and then pull more people from the lower-middle class into the poor class. And now that there are more poor people then Government will then try and raise the minimum wage, and increase the welfare rate and other social safety net policies that are put in place to keep the poor afloat.
It become a cycle, increase tax, only those that can pay will, increase the minimum wage, business take their labor market to a different state or country, increase number of people who are poor, raise the poverty level, increase funds for the poor.
I'm sure I'm missing a few steps, in there, but eventually the government will run out of everyone else's money. I don't like thinking what will come after that
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