Ted Davis wrote:
>>I would be unelectable in this country, for if I ran for office we'd be
paying at least twice as much for gasoline, with the difference being a tax
that *must* be used *only* for building rail transit systems powered by
electricity. <<
Before the North American countries fall for this idea, a high tax on oil does not depress driving as much as one might expect. It makes it very difficult for the poor to get to work. Because of the high prices of gas over here, lots of people don't have cars. Thus they ride the bus. But if I take a bus from my house to my office, a normal travel of 15 - 20 minutes, it would take me 1.5 hours. I have to wait in the rain (which it does often here) for 15-20 minutes for a bus to take me into town, there I must wait another 15-20 minutes to take the bus to my office. Thus a 15 minute trip is turned into an hour travel. And this place has a good bus system. Who wants to tell the poor that they must have one less hour with their children each day so that we can stop driving? To me that is the real cost of the above suggestion.
My Scottish friends tell me that the tax doesn't depress driving and that was how it was sold to them. It merely makes driving which you must do anyway much more expensive.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Sep 25 2000 - 16:26:07 EDT