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Our Energy Crisis Solution: The Pay at the Pump Tax

By: Ben Needles

With the current energy crisis and the price of oil rising dramatically why is no one in the government doing anything to fix it? The answer is that legitimately fixing this problem is not going to make a good running platform. Fixing problems, instead of just pushing them off, requires sacrifice, something that many Americans arent willing to make. The solution to our energy crisis is really quite simple. Increase the gasoline tax.

As a whole the United States uses an astounding amount of gasoline and oil. In 2006 America used 138 billion gallons of gasoline. 138 billion gallons of gasoline is enough for a car going 20 miles per gallon to drive nearly 2.9 trillion miles, thats to the sun and back almost 15 times. All of this gasoline was taxed at 18.5 cents per gallon. This means in 2006 we raised $25,392,000,000 from the gasoline tax. Between the massive use and rising price now is the perfect time to raise the gasoline tax. Adding 5 cents to that tax would raise the price from an average $4.10 per gallon to an average of $4.15 per gallon.

While no one likes the increase in cost look at it this way. Raising nearly 10 billion dollars when the price of gasoline was $1 per gallon would have required a 10% increase in price. Thats a relatively large increase, if you got a 10% increase in your paycheck it would probably make a considerable difference in your lifestyle and so would a 10% increase in gas prices. Today raising nearly 10 billion dollars in additional revenue requires just a 1.7% increase in price. If you were making $,100,000 a year and now made $101,700 it wouldnt suddenly fix all your financial problems most likely and inversely an increase in gas prices of 1.7% likely wont crush you financially either.

This 1.7% increase goes a long way. In 2008 the budget for the Department of Energy (DOE) was 24.3 billion dollars. Of this 24.3 billion dollars only 5.64 billion dollars was devoted to improving energy efficiency and alternative energy sources. So simply put an increase in the gas tax by 5 cents per gallon would increase revenue 9.66 billion dollars. If all of this money was devoted to research departments of the DOE this would yield a 271% increase in funding for just a 1.7% increase in the gas tax. This would not only spur innovation but help to curb gasoline usage, though without hurting the public because it will give them more options to use alternative sources of energy.

In addition to helping to progress alternative energy, after the majority of the nation has turned to alternative energy this tax will no longer be levied on the average American because they will no longer need gasoline to run their cars, they will likely use fuel cells or batteries, both of which would obtain power from a nuclear or coal burning power plant. In this sense the tax will permanently bring in revenue from the sale of gasoline, but help to ween the nation off of it as well so that the public need not think of this as a permanent commitment but a temporary sacrifice.

So with these things in mind, in the long run, would it make more sense to save a few dollars or to escape the rising price of oil and potentially save hundreds. It seems a sound investment and one which you wont regret.

Article Source: http://www.articles4meandu.com

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Jay discusses real solutions to real problems within America at hotfixamerica.com

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