Most of the economics bloggers I know favor higher gasoline taxes. Not immediately, of course, given our economic weakness. But eventually because of environmental and national security concerns.
As noted yesterday, Tim Kane of the Kauffman Foundation does a quarterly survey of economics bloggers. This time around, Tim included a question from me about the federal gas tax. Specifically, what would economics bloggers do with the money from a higher gasoline tax? (While allowing for the possibility that some don’t want it to go up.)
Here are their responses:
(Note: The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon; state gas taxes average another 30 cents, according to the American Petroleum Institute.)
As Tim notes in the full survey, “bloggers seem to love the gas tax.” Almost 85% of respondents supported a higher gasoline tax of which fully half would use the money for infrastructure spending. The remainder would use the money for deficit reduction or to reduce other taxes.
we exported a record amount of gas in august; records date to 1945..
Taxes… Everlasting question for everyone and everywhere. Someones are gaining billions on rising the taxes.
So, these bloggers see taxes as other peoples’ money that they can spend. There is a word for that.
If we raise gas taxes, can we also sell the carbon tax credits that result from reduction in utilization?
these taxes don’t help with my gas tank