gas tax

For a multitude of reasons – climate change, air quality, national security, etc. – a large reduction in the burning of carbon-based fuels is a good idea. Since higher prices are known to reduce consumption, one way to achieve this is to simply put a tax on fuel at the pump. It's been ...

Oh, the gas tax, always a contentious issue. We've covered it throughout the years but now the Congressional Budget Office is reminding us that the time has come to move well beyond simple discussion and politics: the Highway Trust Fund is not getting enough money to pay for the transportation ...

The Reason organization identifies itself as libertarian, but the group's latest Reason-Rupe poll of 1,200 Americans found more Democrats out there (45 percent) than Republicans (35) or "Pure Independents" (16). Whatever the political leanings of the participants and the methodology used, the ...

Higher CAFE standards force manufacturers to build cars that get better mileage, or at least adjust the mix of vehicles they sell. In the decades since the first set of CAFE standards were imposed, we've gone from an average fuel economy of just 13.1 mpg to a less-awful 22.5 mpg. As time goes on, ...

If the U.S. economy wasn't in shambles, renewing the federal excise tax on gasoline would be routine. But, as Congress intensely debated the national debt recently, the gas tax got moved to the back burner. This is a potential problem. With most of the 18.4-cent per gallon gasoline tax set to ...

While people are pretty sure the U.S. government needs to do something about the country's mounting debt, raising gas taxes is not going to be a popular part of the solution. Recently, Rasmussen Reports conducted a national telephone survey and found that only 33 percent of U.S. voters supported a ...

It happens every time there's a proposal on the table for increased fuel efficiency. Someone runs the math, points out that high mileage vehicles use less gasoline, then warns that less gas means less gas taxes for maintaining roads. In this case, that someone is Ben Wear over at the ...

With the price of a single gallon of gasoline hovering around $4.00, it's not like gas comes cheap. In fact, seven out of ten Americans say that soaring pump prices are causing financial hardships. We bet you didn't know that the nationwide average tax on gasoline of 49.5 cents per gallon has ...

If there's one thing that is fast becoming true about the Chevy Volt, it's that right-wing political pundits really, really don't like it. So, we will admit up front that this story comes straight out of the "predictable/it's not news when an idiot says something stupid" file, but it's still ...

Don't hate the man who thinks the Toyota Prius is a geekmobile he "wouldn't be caught dead in." You see, the CEO of General Motors, Daniel Akerson, actually wants more people to buy Priuses. Okay, that's a stretch, but Akerson did tell the Detroit News that he thinks the federal gas tax should be ...