alexiscartwheel | (no subject)

Yesterday I got lost on the way home from work. Slightly embarassing, I know, but what can I saw? I'm not from around here!

The Kansas interstate highways are pothole breeding grounds, and normally I approve of the state's efforts to patch them up. (My taxes put to practical use! Hooray!) I'll even allow that midday, when there's less traffic, is an ideal time for repairs... just not, you know, on the interchange I need, yeah?

Thwarted by pothole patchers, I exited the highway the next opportunity I had, and inconveniently landed myself on one of the few streets in this city that isn't on the grid. (Curse you, Santa Fe Trail Drive!) Usually I have a decent sense of direction, but the diagonal street threw me off, and I ended up spending some quality time driving in circles around Lenexa.

What was I thinking the whole time? I wasn't worried about finding my way home. I may not know the city very well, but I do know that numbered streets run East-West. If all else fails, I can always count my way home. No, the whole time I kept thinking "I am wasting so much gas!" Over the weekend, regular gas hit $3.50 a gallon here, which is enough to make me not want to drive anywhere. Getting lost is expensive.

Yesterday I read that both Hillary Clinton and John McCain favor a summer gasoline tax holiday. They would like to temporarily suspend the 18.4 cent tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I don't know much about economics, but my immediate reaction was that it sounded like a bad idea. Don't get me wrong, I don't like paying lots of money for gas. Since I started driving, the price per gallon has gone up about 250%, and I gripe about it every time. But part of me also believes that the expensive gas is good. Like I said, it makes me want to drive less. And driving less is a very good thing. (I'd walk to work if it wouldn't take 2.5 hours and involve leaving at 5 am. I miss public transit.)

This morning I read Thomas L. Friedman's column, which confirmed that I'm not the only one thinking this way. He writes:

If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

The rising gas prices are inconvenient, but this hardly seems like the time to give a temporary break and encourage people to drive more. Americans drive way too much as it is.

Plus, we need the tax money to fix the potholes.

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Yeah, we talked about taxing gasoline in Econ 200, and how that discourages the use of cars and encourages public transit. Maybe if prices reach high enough, the state will pay more attention to improving mass transit. A gas tax holiday is a ridiculous idea in my opinion.
Then again, I mentioned this to my mom and she just laughed and said "OMG taxes are baddddd".
Riiiight. Potholes must be favorable for her then, lol.

Mass transit in Columbus is terrible. It takes almost an hour to get from campus to Riverside Hospital by bus. That's about the same speed as walking. Not that it seems any better in KC.

Then again, I mentioned this to my mom and she just laughed and said "OMG taxes are baddddd".

LOL. Taxes are fun to bitch about, but they're not supposed to be fun. They make the country not fall apart, which is kind of a good thing usually.

I dunno. While I do think we need to improve non-gas options as well, I like this idea. People who are driving less for environmental reasons will do so still, and people who don't care about the envirnmet won't, like, care even less. People who are trying to drive less for economic reasons will still be wanting to spend less. It's not like gas will be cheap; it just won't be quite AS insane. I doubt people would drive more than they would otherwise. But maybe they'd stress a bit less about things they can't control, like sitting in traffic and catching red lights.

That said, an even more awesome way to use the money would be to put the stuff in nationwide that would be necessary to make using enviro-friendly cars more practical, and giving actually useful-sized tax breaks so that normal people can afford to buy them. Actually, tax breaks take too long. The meddler in me says the govt should flat-out pay part of the price for you when you buy it. A good part. A motivating part. An eco-friendly car that you can use comfortably shouldn't have to be a fantasy.

On the surface, I do quite like the idea of getting a small reprieve from the high costs. The thing that worries me is that it could cost the government $9 billion, but won't save individuals very much.

An eco-friendly car that you can use comfortably shouldn't have to be a fantasy.
I totally agree with that! That'd be much friendlier for the environment, and would save people more money in the long run.