Friday, August 27, 2004
Page 7
CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY (Column)
Higher Gas Prices? Tell Sacramento: ‘No, Thank You’
By JON COUPAL
(The writer is an attorney and president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.)
If you think the price of gas is just too low, then you’ve got a friend in Sacramento. Several of them, in fact.Your “friends,” in this case, are the state legislators behind AB 1468, a bill that would require a 15% cut in gasoline use throughout California. And what does that have to do with the price of gas, you ask?
Take a look at some of the proposals in the state capital, to help you use that 15% less gas:
•A new 50-cents-a-gallon gas tax, which adds up to $7 billion ayear in higher taxes.
•A new 2-cents-per-mile tax for every mile you drive—which adds up to $6 billion a year in higher taxes. (Are we now going to have “odometer police?”)
•A new $3500 tax on every mini-van, SUV and pickup truck we buy.
•45 cents a gallon for “pay at the pump” car insurance. Price tag? $2.4 billion a year.
Add it all up, and your “friends” in Sacramento want you to pay an extra 95 cents per gallon every time you fill up your tank to drive yourself to work, drive your kids to school, drive your family to the movies or to the store. Oh, and a little sticker shock at the dealer’s, depending on what sort of car you choose to drive.
AB 1468 would punish Californians with higher taxes and, in particular, punish lower-income Californians. Driving is not a luxury—it’s a necessary part of everyday life. And for small businesses—making deliveries or receiving shipments—driving is also an everyday part of the business plan. If the state’s actions dramatically raise the price of gas, whatever the stated objective might be, the result is serious hardship.
And let’s not forget—as if we could—that gas is already really expensive. $2 a gallon for gas is the new baseline price in many parts of the state. That’s high enough that even some of our legislators have taken notice. But while they complain about high gas prices, when they act, they’re ready to make prices even higher. AB 1468 sponsors must truly live by the saying “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Now let’s look at the other end of the pump for a moment. If we were paying all these new taxes and fees when we buy gas, where would that money go? Right down that bureaucratic black hole we call the state capital. Our billions of hard-earned dollars would be shipped off to Sacramento, only to disappear into the black hole of the state budget.
The governor is making progress in addressing the structural deficit in the state budget. He and responsible legislators are working to tackle California’s long-term budget problems—but the solution to those problems is a fiscal diet, not financial bingeing. The last thing we need now is to throw billions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of the state government.
Common sense—as well as simple rules of supply and demand—should be enough to tell us that adding another 50 cents or more to the price of every gallon of gas is a bad idea. Even our legislators ought to know that.
But since they don’t, it might be a good idea to let them know. Tell them to solve the state’s budget problems honestly—and not by sneaking money out of the pockets of all of us, every time we fill up our gas tanks. And tell them to get out and take a look at the cost of gas today, before they start making it even higher tomorrow.
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company