Reduceing the price of Gasoline

Wow, where to begin? There is so much to explain about how the price of gasoline could be lowered. You are right. The price of gasoline could be lower! I'll begin with how I learned gasoline prices are artificially high in the USA. When I was an independent trucker I once had to pick up a load in Mexico. Now, American trucks can not go into Mexico, so this is a challenge, but it is done everyday. Here's how it works. First, you drop your trailer in a holding lot in the USA and park your tractor. A Mexican truck then hooks on to your trailer and you ride with the Mexican trucker to supervise the trailer being loaded. The Mexican trucker then brings you and the trailer back to the holding lot. While I was in Mexico, I noticed that their prices of diesel and gasoline were much less than in the USA. How could that be? Afterall, any Mexican business man could just open a gas station in the USA a few miles away and undersell the American stations! Well, no a Mexican business man could not do that. For a Mexican business man to sell gasoline substantially cheaper than an American company in America assumes there is a free market in gasoline in the USA. There is not a free market in gasoline in the USA! If gasoline is brought into the USA not owned by an American company, a special tax is put on it so it is difficult for foreign companies to undersell American companies. This made sense when American companies acted like they were American and not international companies. However, today do you doubt that Exxon thinks of itself more as a company of the world than an American company? Consider the case of CITCO, totally owned by Venzeuala and controlled by Chavez. Don't you think he would substantially undersell Exxon and their ilk, just to teach them a lesson, if he could? Check what gasoline sells for just over the Mexican side of the USA / Mexican border. How much more would that gas cost the supplier to haul it a couple more mile into the USA? Why does the price increase so much? I've already told you the answer. There is a tax protecting American companies. Do you think they are earning that protection?

I agree, and not only that but this isn't the only way that they are wasting our gas tax dollars. They wasted a lot of money in my area with a "town beautification project." In several nearby towns they put in new, decorative streetlights, sidewalks, planters, flower beds, etc. just for beautification purposes. There was no need to spend this money. The sidewalks didn't need replaced and neither did the street lights. Obviously the flower beds and trees were not a necessity. It was nothing but a big waste of money that could have been spent on more important things, or better yet, used to cut our taxes...

I would rather like peope to cut on the use of gasoline and not drive very heavy vehicles. The problem is at the present rate of consumption we will soon run out of our resources and a limited price cut wont help the idea much

An interesting thing about taxes; if they cut taxes, more tax money would come in. As gas prices go up, people will buy less gas, as they only have a finite amount of money. This would mean fewer receipts from the gas tax. If they cut the tax, gas prices would go down, people would buy more, and tax receipts would go back up. It's simple economics.

It seems transportation costs include all modes of moving around, including walking, railroads, buses and vehicles including bicycles. The federal-level Department of Transportation seems to find all kinds of venues to spend our transportation dollars. A railroad crossing closing recently occurred where I live and by closing the crossing, the state claimed they are saving money but then went on to spend some on improvements to other crossings in the same area (within 1/2 mile of the closed crossing. Among the improvements were crossbars and flashing lights installed at the crossing that wasn't closed and they installed "landscaping for aestheitc reasons." Now I don't know about the next guy, but I don't give a hoot how pretty the crossing is now that I cannot use it! This is just another way that our tax money is blown. I would love to see the DOT say well we've done what NEEDS to be done, let's see where we can save the taxpayer money! Instead they impose additional taxes so they can continue their wild spending ways.

I addressed this in the How do we FIX it thread by Miamilady, its in my BRs if you want to look. I say there should be more private work and resources in this matter (though slow, there are projects and research in mass transit, light rail, efficient power, less oil dependent personal transportation) as well as public sector organization naturally. I proposed a fed cut of gas taxes to reduce some of the pricing, but of course the states themselves may or may not follow. I do agree there should be adjusted prices for transit so revenue can be generated, instead of subsidies with low demand and current shortfalls (for most cases like you described). And don't mistake me, there should be more options for transportation, but it should be an evolving process and it has to be a steady one due to current demands and lifestyles. Buses and rail are pretty neat and I'm interested in the technology and deployment, but it has to come about through more market factors (with reasonable government factors, not poor monetary management). Plus, there has to be better planning with current infrastructure repair (not just the cookie cutter "add more lanes" since that just equals a wider idiot pile during peak hours, I meant traffic jam.) Transportation is roughly 75 billion at the federal level and despite all of my experience and research not everything is accounted for both in spending and revenue. But I'll save that one for another time, at least you have the figure as another piece of the puzzle Bob. One other thing Bob, pork definitely needs to be cut. If we've got flapping heads on capitol shill proposing billion dollar bridges to nowhere for only a few people while other roads and bridges (and all transportation options) have major malfunctions on several fronts... I'd say something is definitely broken in that case.

It's an interesting idea, but I doubt it would work. The oil and gasoline companies are going to see an opportunity to increase their own profit without raising the price at the pump, and they're most likely going to take it.