shelbinator.com

Cross-post from yet another place I write.

As a sort of “man of science” who grew up in a household where “handout” was a most loathesome word, I was predictably chagrined when I got an email yesterday alerting me to the Democratic Party of Georgia’s — and apparently our gubernatorial candidate’s — latest attack strategy on Sonny Perdue.

Lower My Gas Tax!

Nearly every neighboring state has cheaper gas than Georgia because of our rising gas taxes*. And, to make matters worse, while our families are suffering from the burden of higher fuel costs, the state government is reaping a tax windfall from it. Georgia government is gaining at YOUR expense. It’s not fair and it’s not right. [Yes, but they keep paying the police and the national guard and I never even asked them to!]

We are in crisis. [No, we’re not even close to a crisis. Lebanon and Israel, that’s a crisis.] Gas prices are at an all-time high, with no end in sight. And what does Sonny Perdue do? Nothing. Governor Perdue refuses to suspend the gas tax even after pleas to do so.
Ask Governor Perdue to give you the tax relief you deserve and suspend the gas tax today.

Let me see if I’ve got this right: let’s stick it to the environment in a summer of smog alerts in order to capitalize on the political gain of an obvious handout that might woo some voters but ultimately do little for their economic health while harming their actual health. And for an extra dash of creepy, let’s sound like Republicans in the process (I thought only the ‘pubs called tax cuts “relief” — I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!). (Don’t even get me started on the webpage itself; I half expected to see the Tripod banner flashing at me, or perhaps an animated Email! button.)

When you say, “Lower my gas tax,” I hear, “Waaaah!” I drive an SUV that tops out at 20mpg if I leave my triple-agression frappuccino at home and obey the speed limit. I also loves me some gas taxes. (Apparently, informed voters don’t mind, either.) I’m that annoying guy that always points out the price of gas in Europe when you start complaining about three dollars a gallon, and I justify my holier-than-thou condescension by steaming in my sweatier-than-thine trousers after walking over the Midtown hill every day to get to work. That’s how I can make that $56.97 I just dropped into my guzzlin’ gas tank last all month. So while I’m sure Gov. Perdue has taken the revenues from the gas tax and spent it on nonexistent Kia plants and increasing suburban sprawl or something, I’m sticking to my global-warming guns and saying hear! hear! for higher gas taxes! Keep ‘em coming, Sonny!

Okay, so the working poor are the first to take a regressive tax hike in the teeth, I will grant you that, but there are progressive ways to offset that without summarily suspending the gas tax in an unabashed election-season ploy. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability [sic] Office have solid arguments that the increase in gasoline prices (in the guise of a federal gas tax) reduce gasoline consumption by encouraging better driving practices, so do we really want to rob Peter to pay Paul?

Let’s look at the numbers: what is “Paul” really going to get out of the deal, anyway? Consider your average working person driving an old ‘97 Honda Civic, getting about 25mpg as they pile up 15,000 miles a year on the interstate: they’re burning 600 gallons a year, no small potatoes. Assuming the gas tax that we’re asking Sonny to suspend is $0.177/gallon (a number I can’t determine at all from the data the DPG cites, so I’m trusting their very unsupported and under-labeled chart no matter how many rules of technical writing it violates), Joe Taxpayer stands to save $106 — but in reality, since this is surely a temporary suspension that would last at best through the election, we’re really trying to bribe this poor dumb taxpayer with $8.85/month. In return for this relief, we’ll be encouraging drivers in the greater Atlanta area alone to drive an additional 2.7 million vehicle miles daily — or 106,000 gallons of gas a day, emitting 929 more tons of CO₂ a day. To suck that back out of the atmosphere, we just need TreesAtlanta to plant about 13 million more saplings.**

Do you really want your $8.85 now?

So how do we get the average driver on the sidewalk more often without screwing the little guy? Ask the Big Guy to call for a reduction and/or suspension of the auto registration ad valorem tax and fees! Remember Joe Taxpayer and his ‘97 Civic? The MVD assesses that puppy in the neighborhood of $1,500 (over $2,000 if it’s tricked out!), and here in Atlanta we pay a millage rate of 0.0429, costing him a tax of $64. Tack on the $20 or so in fees, and this saves our working friend the equivalent of about $0.14/gallon — almost as much as a full suspension of the gas tax, and probably a lot more, considering how short-lived such a measure would be.

Anyway, there are your numbers, so let’s see if we can’t come up with some better solutions to real problems and not just pander to the price-of-gas buzz.

——

*And because Georgia took a lead position in requiring more expensive low-sulfur gasoline, woohoo!

** The data: assuming a price elasticity of -0.3, which is a near-term/long-term average gleaned from the CBO report cited above, dropping the price of gasoline by that 5.9% (= 0.177 / 3) will result in an increase of fuel consumption of 1.77%. The EPA study here (Table 1) shows a trend in Summer Daily Vehicle Miles Traveled for the 13-county Atlanta area that puts us right around 150,000,000 SDVMT for 2006. 106,000 gallons of gas assuming current CAFE standard 25mpg, and using stoichiometric conversion to tons CO2 here. These hippies over here say that “1000 trees absorb 25 tons CO2/year,” though who knows what kind of trees.