GM's Wagoner says gas taxes, $4/gallon price floor "worth considering"
Slapping a few dimes' worth of tax onto each gallon of gas we buy at the pump hasn't been the most popular idea in Washington. Sure, some elected representatives have called for a higher gas tax in the past, but more often than not the idea dies on the vine. There is a chance that things will be different now that one of the biggest opponents to a gas tax increase, General Motors (through CEO Rick Wagoner), has given the idea a sort of blessing. Wagoner said yesterday that a federal gas tax that sets a price floor of $4 a gallon is "worthy of consideration." Something tells me that GM saw the interest in the Chevy Volt grow like mad during last year's gas price spike, and wouldn't mind a rise in gas prices before the Volt hits dealerships at the end of 2010. GM spokesman Greg Martin told the Washington Times that: Everybody talks about $4 a gallon because, until gas prices hit $4, nobody saw any shift in consumer behavior. Only then did people put fuel efficiency front and center.
Since it'd be a bad idea to raise prices fast, talking about a higher gas tax now means there's plenty of time to reach $4 a gallon again before the Volt's real debut.
Gallery: 2011 Chevy Volt
[Source: Washington Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Yikes 12:46PM (3/18/2009)
LOL.
Reckless Rick is grand standing. I'm sure he is hoping and praying for $1.00 gas so he can go back to selling Trucks with $10,000 profits.
Reply
polo 4:33PM (3/18/2009)
No, he really wants $4 gas so they can charge SUV-size premiums for cars that are slightly more efficient. Because since people wouldn't be able to afford to gas up their regular cars, they'll be willing to go out and pay a large premium for a smaller car with better mileage....except there's only one problem in this theory. People who can't afford to fill up their cars probably wouldn't be able to afford a more expensive car, efficient or not. Instead they'll just cut down on shopping and skip a few mortgage payments.....oh wait! Thats how we got into this mess! LETS DO IT AGAIN!!
Obama should just mandate GM produces 50% EVs or plug-in gas extended hybrids.
Steve-O 12:56PM (3/18/2009)
OMG
This guy is a moron. $4 per gallon gas did help push the economy in a tailspin, and now that it is 1/2 that, consumption has not gone back to those levels.
This one statement makes me so angry, that I will never buy another GM product with that idiot at the helm.
Reply
Carney 3:19PM (3/18/2009)
$4 gas is fine by me, IF $2.50 ethanol and $1.50 methanol are also up there on the sign.
jharlan 1:18PM (3/18/2009)
Another self serving Jackass who can afford all the gas he wants throwing a another burden on the working poor, who really happening to be suffering now. I prefer raising the income tax on executives earning 7 figures to 99%, and denying all exemptions. That way when they steal from the shareholders, the government will steal it back from them. They can afford it!
.
Reply
yabun 1:04PM (3/18/2009)
$4/gallon seems high. So, to those that think this is crazy...
1) Should we have a gas price floor at all?
2) If so, what would be reasonable? $2.50$ $3.00?
Reply
Throwback 7:21PM (3/18/2009)
No, we should not have a floor. All that does is guarantee the oil companies a minimum profit of whatever you set the floor at.
Richard in FLA 1:36PM (3/19/2009)
Floor or not, the price should reflect a painful sales of gasoline. If your car gets twice the gas mileage of a comparable car then you've effectively cut your gasoline expense in half. A high price of gasoline will inspire the market to provide these efficient cars faster than any CAFE ruling. Of course, taxes should be cut somewhere else so that we aren't taxed to death and the govt can continue to spend recklessly. Only when your cost of gasoline goes up will you be inspired to change your vehicle to a more efficient or alternative fueled vehicle. It's fact. Europe is a primary example of this principle.
GoodCheer 1:12PM (3/18/2009)
Clearly any sort of gas tax like that would need to be accompanied by a flat or progressive tax credit so that the working poor would not be disproportionately penalized.
Reply
mister nomer 3:28PM (3/18/2009)
Right there with you.
Richard in FLA 1:18PM (3/18/2009)
I've been a proponent of a gas price floor for quite some time. Sure it hurts those that want the status quo, but it hurts our economy and it hurts our political stability more. We stand to loose a lot if those terrorist (Man made catastrophes as dip-shit Napolitano likes to call it!) keep getting funded by petro-dollars.
When the price of gas goes up again when our economy recovers, terrorists will profit from the extra income generated from the extra miles we will be driving all over the world. The only solution is go go oil-less or consume a great deal less of it. This won't happen if there is no incentive. Guess what? When the price of gasoline is low, nobody is going to buy a more fuel efficient automobile/motorcycle. It's fact! Everybody that thinks a gas tax is unfair doesn't remember 9-11! They are only concerned with driving their gas guzzling SUV! It's a sad fact of life, sometimes we must make concessions to achieve a great good.
Reply
Yikes 3:13PM (3/18/2009)
Richard, are gas guzzling sports cars and performance cars ok with you, or do you only hate SUVs?
Noz 1:41PM (3/18/2009)
In other words, Wagoner is stating:
"The American people were too dumb to change their habits while we were force feeding them crap, oversized cars they didn't need and we were too greedy to offer them any real alternatives. Now that we're going bankrupt, the only chance we have is to make smaller cars that we should have made decades ago. But we need help...we need to herd the sheep into buying smaller cars so we can kick our own addiction to making bloated crap....we need help guys."
Reply
mister nomer 3:49PM (3/18/2009)
Noz says: "The American people were too dumb to change their habits while we were force feeding them crap, oversized cars they didn't need..."
Dude, wait. Slow down.
Set aside GM's quality issues of the past and resurgent quality of today and consider your assertion that they were forcing big cars on us.
All makers' cars are bigger now than they were in the 80s because that's what people bought. People bought bigger cars, makers made bigger cars, people kept buying bigger so makers kept making them bigger. It's a vicious cycle.
Today's Civic is bigger than a mid-80s accord. Today's Audi A4 is bigger than a mid-80s Audi 4000. Today's BMW 3-series is bigger than a mid-80s 5-series.
And I could go on...
The only way out of this is to get people to factor in fuel economy into their purchase and that probably isn't going to happen unless gas is expensive.
Granted, there needs to be corresponding income tax cuts for lower income brackets packaged with any gas tax increase, but a bigger gas tax seems like a good idea if we want better fuel economy.
Noz 4:04PM (3/18/2009)
MISTER NOMER:
You make good points. I can't disagree...cars have gotten bigger all around. But my point is which car company is better positioned NOW to handle the downturn? Larger GM or smaller Honda? And why?
I know some apologists here are going to say the government helped them. But what about the product line-up they have overall?
There's a reason why companies such as Honda are not going down the toilet like GM. They had just a little more foresight in their business plan and weren't looking only to 4 years down the road.
GM made no effort whatsoever to give people good quality, competitive smaller vehicles. The measly selection they had was pathetic at best and most of their money and research was pouring into how to make a dinosaur SUV into a luxury barge with the least amount of money.
Even after all these years, name one small car GM makes that can even remotely compete with the Honda Fit...quality-wise, efficiency-wise, styling-wise...for that class of car. GM couldn't find it's own ass with both hands if it tried. It needs to be forced to produce small efficient cars.....either that or an entire generation of baby-boomer idiots who are running the company now need to die and be replaced by a newer generation of forward thinking managers.
mister nomer 6:22PM (3/18/2009)
Noz:
You too make some good points about GM and their lack of good quality, small cars.
About the only thing I can say here about GM is that I give them credit for trying - granted, also debatable - because of cars like the Opel/Saturn/Vauxhall/? Astra.
It's just that - as you point out - they haven't quite been up to the task on a lot of other attempts.
jpm 1:40AM (3/19/2009)
EXACTLY.
oollyoumn 1:57PM (3/18/2009)
Maybe Rick is hoping the tax revenue will be used to artificially keep GM alive prolonging his disastrous rule over GM.
Reply
donee 11:00AM (3/29/2009)
Hi oolyoumn,
Bingo!
Rick is really not an eviormentalist, he just knows GM is a welfare company now. And there has to be an economic realignment to pay for that welfare. To Rick, the government is just another profit center!
Still, there are awful lots of bad roads around the midwest here. And the taxes we pay on gas is just not enough to keep them maintained, apparently. Gas taxes need to go up. Better quality materials need to be used, so that they do not turn into rutted tracks, each time we have a bunch of freeze-thaw cycles in a row.
Although I liked the gas cost floor, as the best for the consumer, I am not sure its the best for the governement or the goals of keeping money out of over-seas leaky accounts. What is to prevent the people in the oil industry from fudging their books and taking all the difference between the floor and what they actually produce at. I just do not think that is actuarily practical now.
So, I think it needs to be a tax per unit wells to wheels .
Me 2:02PM (3/18/2009)
I am all for a gasoline price floor.
Consumers are driven by economics. They will consume as much fuel as they can afford, driving the biggest vehicle possible. If gas goes to $1/gallon and stays there, there isn't a hope in the world of fuel efficient vehicles surviving.
GM didn't force any vehicles down anyone's throat. Consumers wanted big SUVs and GM provided them. The reason GM doesn't make a small diesel car is because consumers won't buy them in large numbers. Nor will they buy cars with manual transmissions.
It would be nice if consumers used their environmental conscious when they decided their energy consumption, but the truth of the matter is they don't. They make their decisions based on economics.
Reply