Quote:
Originally posted by island911
Further raising, the already high fuel prices, w/ a massive tax-hike, will make driving a luxury only for those with money.
To paraphrase a common Lib line; your scheme disproportionately burdens the poor.
As was said earlier, if you want to encourage more efficient vehicles, then simply push those standards.
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the scheme would advantage the poor bigstyle if the money is used to create public transport
if i understand correctly , most big cities in the US do not have a subway or metro system? LA ? Miami? Texas? etc?
which ones do have such a system? NY ? San Francisco? Chicago?
how about New Orleans?? why didn't those 100 000 "poorer" people not take a train? why didn't the gouvernement make sure there were trains to evacuate??
i live in a country that's below the waterline... but from the looks of it , if there was an evacuation , public transport would be the key... i bet they have plans to do just that, they would not leave people behind simply because they can't afford a plane ticket, or because they have no car ...
how good is the train system in the US? in Europe , we can get from any major city too any major city by train, in most cases, High speed train, and we're still getting new tracks every year
provincial cities in most western european countries have trainstations... i'm talking cities with 20- 30 000 inhabitants...
tha'ts like a suburb for you guys . but we have commuter trains there
most if not all major western european cities have either a Tube, metro or city busses, hell , even small villages with say 1500 inhabitants have a bus service that goes up and down to the closest town several times a day, even early in the morning , so school kids and commuters can get to the station in time to get to work 150 km's away if need be.
i'll admit , it sucks bigtime to commute by public transport, it's still a bit slower , but it's cheap, there are discounts for the unemployed, for the elderly , for kids, companies refund tickets to commutors , and even the poor can get anywhere they want for a reasonable price... and it's still getting better all the time.
some cities actually have free bus systems ...
the way i see it , not taxing the fuel and having cars as the only mode of transportation in certain areas is more of a disadvantage for the poor. they can't even get to certain places if they can't afford a car. there just isn't an alternative. or at least nothing with a practical time table.
and if i'm not mistaken , there is less really bad poverty in Western Europe than there is in the USA... there's less homeless , our bottom end, is less deep... we do not have as much poverty that is enherited from generation to generation, and there's more chances to actually break out of that cycle.. dispite having had fuel taxed for a long time now, and cigarrettes, and booze, and income and 20% on sales...
encouraging standards for fuel economy? that's like begging to a 12 year old , please watch less tv, and do more school work.. it won't work except for the few. and it still wouldn't adress the existing cars out there.