Sunday, November 27, 2005

A new tax on hybrid autos coming?

As reported here, a new transportation study commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce suggests that taxing hybrid and other fuel efficient autos may be on the horizon, to make up for a projected shortfall in the national transportation budget.

Okay, let me get this straight. Everyone wants our dependency on foreign oil dealt with, and the auto makers have created various types of new fuel efficient vehicles, including the hybrids, as a short term answer to that problem, with the government encouraging people to buy these new vehicles to use less fuel, right? Well, people are buying these vehicles, and in high enough volumes that some auto makers are having problems keeping up with the demand. So now, with more of these fuel efficient vehicles on the road using less gas, that means that the feds are getting less money from the federal gas tax, right? What to do, what to do? Oh, I know! Create a new tax on the hybrid, and other fuel efficient cars! That's the ticket! Yeah!

Yes, impose a new tax on those vehicles. Go ahead. See what happens. Remember the luxury tax on new boats, and the result of that tax? Many boat manufacturers went out of business, resulting in many, many lost jobs. Sales volumes of the fuel efficient vehicles will go down as well, as people won't buy them to avoid having to pay the new tax on them, and will instead buy less fuel efficient vehicles that don't have this new tax, thereby maintaining the status quo on our dependency on foreign oil.

Yep. Sounds like a plan to me.

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