Quote:
Originally Posted by BenderX
I dunno if you were thinking $6/gallon as priced by the market or via a gas tax, but the latter would be the ultimate way to tie consumer behavior to fuel economy. Yes, I know the first member of congress to propose it would be burned at the stake, but it would even affect driving behavior within the same vehicle class. If you can tease 20mpg out of your Lincoln Navigator, you save money. Like to thrash your hybrid and run at max A/C? You pay more at the pump. In the meanwhile, the gov't brings in some more revenue.
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$4/gallon is already having an impact -- and I wasn't trying to suggest that my _specific_ ideas were the best way to solve the problem, but rather make (by way of proposing specific examples) the suggestion that a consumer-side incentive system will have a bigger impact that the supply-side CAFE system that's failing so miserably today.
Effectively the 'safest' thing a politician can do for their own career safety is to let the petroleum companies gouge the consumers while pretending to be really upset about it (because now the bastard that's raping your wallet is the oil company and not the government.) My point is that I rather suspect the reason they all just "talk about it" but are pretty thin on action is because a lot of action would result in the lynch mob, but inaction will let them blame someone else.
While I hate the sad truth of it... I'd be pretty disappointed at the intelligence of any Washington career politician who wasn't smart enough to think this through to their own benefit and effectively stick the blame on someone else.