The high price of gasFollow

Yeah, I could be. I could go and see if I could find a press release of the date he was signing books there and then link the thread about when I was in CA etc., but really all that would prove is that he was down the street from me signing books.

Whatever. It's not like I'm claiming he offered to blow me for a quarter.

Now, after I meet Thundra, I might have a diffrent story.

The first generation of these vehicles didn't meet expectations and were waaay overpriced (Honda Insight & Toyota Prius). The second generation hybrid vehicles are very impressive and worth a look. Honda has done an exceptional job with the Civic hybrid. You loose a little trunk space, but the 4 door sedan looks exactly like a normal Civic and has tons of interior room. The car costs 20K (compared to 16K for a Civic LX), but with 48mpg over 3-5 years the car begins to pay for itself.

Anyone who is in the market for a good commuter car this one is definitely worth a hard look. Good job Honda! I can't wait until Toyota releases the hybrid Corolla. Now if only the price of the vehicle would go down, so they are the same price as the standard gasoline powered vehicles. A government instant rebate would be nice, but I guess that may be too much wishful thinking.

Paying taxes to encourage early adopters to buy hybrid vehicles that might help move us away from a petroluem run economy sounds like a better use of my money than paying taxes to help Bush & Co. seize oil supplies in the Middle East

How about paying taxes for Police, or Roads, or Fire Departments, or Sewers, or Schools?

Is that ok? OR would you rather use the money you earned to pay for those things? Because unless you're making over $200,000 a year you're drawing massively more out of the government in taxes than you're paying in.

Just wondering.

As a fellow conservative (you wouldn't guess it by the my viewpoint on this conversation...I can cross party lines from time to time), I normally wouldn't advocate using taxpayer money to fund a personal purchase. After seeing some of the pork barrel projects that actually get funding, I wouldn't mind seeing some form of rebate. You could do it rather simply by reducing the state sales tax, where the federal government then compenstates the state back. This in effect would give a small instant rebate, where money really is never transferred between the government and the car dealer (thus reducing fraud).

If it makes you feel better you can call this a pork project. Personally I don't think it's any worse that studying the migratory habits of honey bees (passed under homeland security funding), putting millions of dollars into the SPR (not to mention the maintenance costs), or giving subsidies to farmers not to plant. An instant government rebate to help promote hybrid vehicles in order to make them more cost effective and more marketable most likely wouldn't cost all that much. It's money better spent than studying honey bees.

p.s. Boy is this converstation going to take off.

It's not an instant rebate, but there is a one time federal income tax credit for purchasing a hybrid vehicle.

Ok. Don't really have a position on this (I suppose I'd go for a subsidy as well). This just struck me as funny:



Heh. You've really got that $200,000 figure stuck in your brain. You need to get out more I think.


So... Are you saying that only people who make more then 200k a year pay more in taxes then they get benefits *from* taxes?

So why should we tax those people more? Aren't they already paying more then their "share"?


You don't have to reply. I honestly don't care that much about it. I just felt that this was amusing coming from you.

Hmm, I made just over $200 grand this past year. And what's more, I have almost no deductions.


So gimme my money back all you lazy, tax-devouring, entitlement whores!!!

You can prove this?



Actually the Libertarian position on taxes is based on the premise that:

Libertarians believe that the government taxing you forcibly interferes with your right to live in whatever manner you choose. The other arguments against taxes are that private enterprise can provide the same services that the government pays for but at a much lower cost due to market forces and that by reducing the size of government to the level called for by the Constitution we would reduce or eliminate the need for taxes. Believe what they preach or not but at least be accurate if you are going to characterize their positions.

Speaking of taxes, having filed mine yesterday (being the lazy ******* I am), I can safely say that Bush's amazing tax cuts will play little role in getting me to vote Republican this election. In fact, I don't think I'm getting a penny more back this year than last year and might even be getting less back.

Wish I was making Smash's magic $200k/per year number so I could enjoy the new tax system

If you are comparing taxes paid between last year and this year then looking at just the amount that you overpayed is the wrong way to go about it. You should be looking at how much you paid for the year and compare that to last year. Not saying that this would change the comparision much in your case but I see too many people these days that think of taxes in terms of how much they get back or pay when they file taxes instead of looking at how much they paid for the year.

Payroll taxes are such a scam on the middle class. Don't even get me started.