On Mar 29, 7:04 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:
On Mar 29, 5:14?pm, wrote:
On Mar 29, 7:02 am, " wrote: feds
should loosen smog regulations on gasoline and additives, to help
bring price down a little

temporarily suspend the federal gasoline tax

That gas tax isn't enough to make a difference. ?RAISE the tax, and
use it for alternative development, efficient mass transit, etc.

unrestrained higher costs of gasoline means less spending on
everything else.............

Exactly. Fuel use is virtually inelastic. Price goes up, people pay it or
starve, lose their jobs, or suffer other dire consequences. Gone are the
days when people "went for a drive." Virtually all travel is a necessity.

As for using increased tax revenues to fund, say, mass transit. It takes
five years to lay track. So 100% of the drivers in my town would be charged
extra amounts so that five years from now, 2% of the population will have
the opportunity to use rail transit? Really bad trade-off. Really bad.

The alternative is that in 5 years, you'll still be paying huge
amounts for gas, but you WON'T have mass transit. That's even worse.
We screwed up mass transit a long time ago, and correcting that will
be costly, but not impossible.
Furthermore, you don't have to have rails for MT. You CAN use busses,
which don't take anywhere near 5 years to implement, and the routes
can be changed immediately at no cost as situations warrant. Not the
best answer, but it is and answer.