When gasoline goes from $3.50 to $4.30 a gallon in one month, don’t call this a price increase. Call it what it really is: a tax!
Like a tax, expensive gasoline takes money out of consumers’ pockets. The only difference between higher gasoline prices and higher taxes is that money derived from higher taxes can go for such things as government employees’ pensions or health benefits. Or the extra tax money can go to schools that don’t educate.
Moreover, the more gasoline costs, the more money government gets from the gasoline sales tax.
In a time of rising gasoline prices, government should cut taxes.
California Gov. Jerry Brown should reverse course and demand that voters reject his November ballot measure, a measure that will hike the state sales tax and the personal income tax.
Consumers are already paying too much for necessities like food and fuel. There is no need to expand — through taxes — the bloated government of California.
Bill Gram-Reefer is Editor & Publisher of Halfway To Concord, founded in 2004. Halfway To Concord is the leading online source for community-driven political news, events, and opinion for Contra Costa County and the San Francisco East Bay.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Broadly speaking, a tax can be a transfer of money from one entity to another. For example, rent paid to a landlord can be, in broad terms, a tax. Normally, a tax is an amount of money paid to a government entity. Taxes, like commodity prices (food, fuel, etc.) can vary from time to time. The effects of rent, gasoline prices, and payments to government agencies have the same effect: the consumer is left with less money.
Richard Colman
Orinda, CA
While I agree with the underlying sentiment, I don’t think it’s helpful to call market driven price fluctuations a tax unless the price increases are the result of a government action. (In which case they are still only a “tax” in an economic sense, but not in a legal sense.)
The federal and state gasoline taxes do not fluctuate with price as they are imposed on a per gallon basis. The California sales tax does fluctuate as it is based upon the price. But, as EdiBirsan pointed out, it both rises and falls over time.
The really intersting point vis-a-vis taxation is that California is one of only two states that impose both a gasoline tax and a sales tax on gasoline sales. (For the other states with a sales tax it is an either/or proposition, unless the sale is otherwise exempt.)
Cost of living and affordability are certainly issues that the voters should tax into consideration.
That said, I will be voting “NO” on any tax increases. It’s time to “starve” Leviathan (or Freeloader Nation).
The problem isn’t a lack of revenue, but rather too much spending!
It’s communism…simply put
The government spends, hires, grows a bloated government equals liberalism/socialism/communism.
Thank you for this column. You’re correct that consumers and small business owners are squeezed from every direction right now. Gas prices are a hot topic in this election year.
Currently there is no voter appetite for tax increases, which is why the state and local tax and bond proposals on the November ballot are expected to fail.
The Taxed Enough Already “tea-party” movement is on to something: government is overspending, it’s not short on cash.
Specifically, unaffordable government employee compensation — including pensions and lifetime health care benefits — irk everyone else struggling to pay for daily necessities. State and local elected officials typically advocate for maintaining these policies, which triggers voter frustration and calls for reform.
And don’t forget that Californians already pay one of the highest gas tax rates in the nation. Whenever the price of gas inches closer to $5/gallon, California consumers get really antsy . . . with good reason.
So when gas prices went DOWN from 4.30 to 3.50 it was also because of the tax?