This is more than the average fossil car owner pays in gas taxes, and really bad policy during a world fuel shortage.

  • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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    3 months ago

    This Congress isn’t doing that though; they’re just out to make it hard to switch away from gas

    • CombatWombat@feddit.online
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      3 months ago

      Not really, as transit and bicycles are unaffected. Cars are the problem; EVs are only marginally less bad (maybe, depending on whose lobbyists are doing the math).

      • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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        3 months ago

        They’re a lot better in terms of greenhouse gases and air pollution. Switching to EVs doesn’t solve social problems or traffic in the way that getting people out of cars does.

        I’d be fine with an equal tax on motor vehicles, with adjustments for value or mass. But putting a higher tax on electric ones is just a way to harm Americans

        • CombatWombat@feddit.online
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          3 months ago

          Driving is expensive, societally, and tailpipe emissions are only a small part of that harm. Cyclists and transit riders should not have to pay to subsidize cars murdering children and tearing down our cities to build parking lots. Drivers should have to pay. Shifting the cost of cars to drivers incentivizes drivers to stop driving to save money, which is the goal. We should continue to tax driving in all its forms until the cost of driving to individual drivers adds up to more than the cost of driving to the whole of society.

          • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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            3 months ago

            That’s fine, but to disproportionately tax electric ones doesn’t achieve those benefits; it just increases the amount of pollution

            • HubertManne@piefed.social
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              3 months ago

              This perfect be the enemy of good is a relatively extreme part of the biking community. The “tailpipe emissions are only a small part of that harm” is a bit of a stretch to. I would argue its the largest part of that harm but not the only harm.

                • HubertManne@piefed.social
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                  3 months ago

                  Not what? The emissions are not the largest part if the gas tax is 500%, but they are if the gas tax is less?

                  • CombatWombat@feddit.online
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                    3 months ago

                    A gas tax makes the most sense because it directly addresses the supply shock from US military action in Iran, but I’d take a usage tax (they’re already tracking every car anyway) or an per-axel annual tax or a tire tax.