Letters from the Moron Zone: Gas prices are down — time for $1/gallon tax

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There are idiots. There are morons. There are those so damned impressed with their so-called intellect that they feel overly compelled to share their nuggets with the entire world. And Ron Sher fits the entirety of that discription.

For reasons that only God knows, the Times felt the need to allow this utter waste of skin a soapbox from which he could rant about his economy crushing, poor people punishing nonsense about jacking up our gas tax an additional dollar.

Now, apparently, this guy manages the Bellevue Crossroads shopping center and he founded a book store. To me, that means he’s as qualified to discuss transportation policy and financing/taxation as he is to fly the Space Shuttle. But the Times let him rant anyway.

The idiocy of his position is self-evident to anyone not possessed of the King County disease.

We cannot tax ourselves into prosperity. His entire position starts with a fallacy and goes down hil from there:

Gas prices are down, so lets make life better by enacting a huge tax increase on that particular commodity.

Moral, social engineers tend to make me sick. Sher is no exception.

There is NO economic theory that he cites to support this crap, just social engineering glittering generalities and a blind trust in the same government that got us into this situation to take this money and do the right thing with it.

"Now we will need more than ever to provide for the needs of our citizens and what better way than by imposing a $1-per-gallon gas tax to raise money and encourage people to continue to make environmentally responsible choices."

Ron Sher

It's been said before, just a little differently.

"To save the village, we had to destroy it."

Popularly ascribed to a MAC-V briefing officer in Vietnam during that war.

Such an idea does nothing for "our citizens." It would be a bonanza for labor unions and government, but those Sher alleges need the benefit the most would be the ones required to pay it.

The idea that we don't pay enough for our gas, because, according to Sher, we only pay "...40 percent of the tax on gas in Europe" is the ultimate in idiocy.

What others pay in other places justifies nothing when those prices are a result of government policy as opposed to the price of the commodity.

Sher would have us begin to emulate Europe, as if that continent was Utopian. I say that if the price of Gas in Riyadh is a buck, then maybe we should follow THAT lead.

The impacts of such a huge tax would disproportionately impact our rural areas and our poorest Americans. It would dramatically increase the costs of freight and have a ripple effect across the entire spectrum... just like the $4 a gallon gas preceding our economic downturn impacted us.

How are the needs of our citizens hurting the worst met by a massive tax increase? And what kind of idiot believes that our government would voluntarily reduce its drug intake (and to this state's government, money is heroin) when we already face a $6 to 8 billion dollar deficit for this cycle?

Cheap gasoline prices are buying our economy time. It's an instant, market-based subsidy to the middle and lower economic class that has been clobbered by massive energy prices, most likely driven by market manipulation, that makes Madoff look like a fender-bender.

In fact, for purposes of revenue, cheap gasoline is just what the doctor ordered. The more gasoline the consumer buys around here, the more money government gets... because our gas taxes are based on the unit (gallon) instead of the price of gasoline itself.

So, if the price of gasoline itself were less, we would use it more... and government would realize even greater revenue.

That is not to say that we should not set a goal for energy independence at least equal to President Kennedy’s challenge to get men on the moon before the end of the 1960’s. But there is no way that such a strategy doesn't include fossil fuels and a robust economy... an economy assisted by the cheap availability of fuel.

And inflicting pain on the consumer is not the way to achieve that goal.

Mr. Sher should stick to making sure that the stripes in the parking lot are painted well enough, or whatever it is he does. He can save his social engineering efforts; and if he thinks Europe is all that because the people over there put up with government usury, then he should feel free to get on a plane and move over there.

I’m sure they’d love him.

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Gas prices are down — time for $1/gallon tax

Washington state's economy is headed for the worst time since the Great Depression and our state is facing a huge deficit, notes developer Ron Sher. Now we will need more than ever to provide for the needs of our citizens and what better way than by imposing a $1-per-gallon gas tax to raise money and encourage people to continue to make environmentally responsible choices.

By Ron Sher
Special to The Times

DURING the past several months, gas prices rose dramatically to more than $4 per gallon, and then fell below $2 — even lower than before the rise. Our total cost of gas is now only 40 percent of the tax on gas in Europe. Meanwhile, our state is looking at a projected budget deficit of almost $6 billion.

A price of $2 per gallon is far too low a price for gas, especially when one includes all the costs to our society implicit in the burning of fossil fuels, such as global warming, air pollution and resource depletion. It is time for a $1 state gas tax and a state constitutional amendment to alter the limitation on how a gas tax can be spent.

When gas prices shot up briefly, we started to make adjustments. Certainly these were inconvenient, but they actually represented positive changes that we as a society will eventually have to make in the long term. We began to explore new behaviors such as carpooling, bicycling, taking the bus, eliminating trips, driving whenever there was less traffic, combining errands and even walking.

Some people bought smaller cars, others reflected on the long-term impacts of fossil-fuel use and considered moving closer to work or transit. Some asked themselves, could they live with one less or possibly no car? People began to use less fuel, which decreased both demand and price, which in turn helped our balance of payments, principally by reducing the transfer of our country's wealth to the oil-producing nations.

Higher gas prices encourage investment in alternative energy sources, green technologies, transportation infrastructure and, most important, influence us to make those lifestyle changes that lessen our demand for fossil fuels.

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