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Sure. I'd also be interested in any kind of incentives for poor people to get in fuel efficient small newer cars. A carrot rather than a stick, if you will.
by supergauntlet 7y ago
Sure. I'd also be interested in any kind of incentives for poor people to get in fuel efficient small newer cars. A carrot rather than a stick, if you will.
- Gibbon1 7y agoI keep harping on that. Raising the gas tax punishes poor and working class people for decisions they (or other people made for them) back when there wasn't any rational choice. Consider a working stiff driving a 10 year old car. Living in a place with no good public transportation. Raising the gas tax assumes he has/had options he doesn't not in fact have. And policy changes that would give him an alternative have time lines a 100 times longer than next months rent. Opinion: Gas taxes are based on wishful ideologically driven thinking that free markets can solve public policy failures.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoOK, I'll consider that working stiff. Let's say he lives in Saskatchewan, family of 4, rural area. That means he gets a carbon tax rebate of $670 in 2019, which would cover the carbon tax for 4408 gallons of gas. The average family in Saskatchewan pays $403 in carbon taxes over the year. That working stiff may drive more than average, but his carbon footprint is unlikely to be more than average because he probably is heating a smaller house, flying less than normal and buying less stuff than rich people. Of course this working stiff can't afford to buy a new Tesla, but in my experience poor people turn over their cars faster than the middle class. Their junker breaks down and it'll cost more to fix it than it's worth so they sell the old one to a wrecker and buy another 10 year old car. Maybe the next 10 year old car is a used Leaf? Awful range, but it gets him to work and back, and it saves a good bit of money...