When did they repeal the law of supply and demand?
cigarette taxes have been instrumental in cutting smoking, there is a lot of data on that….
And do you care to list what part of a gallon of gas is taxes?
Here in the US, the demand curve for gasoline is fairly inelastic. Ditto for cigarettes, among that portion of the market that is seriously addicted (doesn’t include casual smokers). People will beg/borrow/steal the money to purchase essentials, and gasoline is definitely one of those. Have cigarette taxes discouraged consumption? Probably among new or potential smokers, definitely. Among the seriously addicted? I’m guessing not as effective (but I could be wrong).
Increasing gas taxes could help cut down on unnecessary trips; we did see that happen last summer when prices went very high. However, people must still travel to and from their jobs and to the grocery store/etc… A drastic increase in fuel taxes could spur more people to carpool for these kind of trips, and that could be a good thing.
I stand corrected — looks I misspoke about gasoline taxes in the US. I just looked them up here, and I am quite surprised just how low they are here. This wiki page does mention that high fuel taxes have been helpful in reducing consumption in Europe; however, many European countries have much more developed public transport systems than the US does, so people can opt to use that instead. Fewer people here will be able to use public transport, at least until it is developed.
I’m not against these taxes in principle, it’s just that we already spend more than we take in. Adding new taxes without drastically reducing spending or even limiting what that revenue may be spent on is a bad idea IMO. If they could be put in a special fund that would only be used for public transport, wind/solar/biomass, new nuclear plants, etc… I would support it. But of course they won’t do that, they’ll just give it to their criminal buddies on Wall street and use it to make more bombs to drop on people.
