WERM,

I agree that small cars use less gas and pollute less and I personally drive a fuel efficient Saturn Ion Quad Coupe as my daily driver and keep my Z28 for the weekends, but I made that decision because I felt it best suited my needs at this time (my wife drives the Saturn Vue SUV).

I firmly believe in "personal responsibility" and each person making decisions for what is best for him/her and their family. Any attempt by the government to think for me by taking my money away from me through extra-taxes and limiting my options in the process by reducing my income (by taxation) and making me more "dependent" on the state is destined to fail.

If a person has a large family and has lots of stuff to haul around then let them choose the vehicle that best for their family. It seems like all these new tax-increases (real and/or proposed) are always designed to punish people who have families and need more space for their kids and family stuff.

The real strength of the USA has been founded on a strong middle-"family"-class that does not rely on expensive and ineffecient government programs for surival. While a SUVs might not be the most efficient method of transportation it does meet the needs of many American familes the best. A four bedroom house in the suburbs appears to be less efficent then a little condo in the city because it takes up more space but thats what families need.

Not everyone wants to be single, live in little condo in the city, and drive little ugly cars all their lives.

 

I never said we need to all cruise around in microscopic cars, but when 50% of vehicle sales are gas guzzling SUV's, we have a problem. Personal responsibility has failed us. The average fuel economy of cars sold today is worse than 1980 - mostly because of SUV's. (BTW, adjusted for inflation, gas in the early 1980's cost nearly double what it costs today) A full size car, wagon or minivan would suit the needs of most people and would be far more efficent - and nobody's even driving small cars yet.

These vehicles (SUVs) don't need to be legislated out of existance, but gas needs to be expensive enough so that when people buy them, Fuel Economy ranks in oh, say the top 20 things people consider when buying a car.

In an ideal world (which we know doesn't exist) any fuel taxes would be spent upgrading the transportation network - better roads, new roads, and subsidizing a high speed rail network, etc.

Food for thought: Cruising down the highway - A corvette gets roughly 50% better fuel economy than a full size SUV.

 

Obviously a Corvette (not a family car) gets better gas milage then a SUV considering its only a 2 person sports car built on a signicantly lighter platform (comparing apples to oranges doesnt support your argument).

The reality is that for every $10.00 of taxes only about $1.00 actually get to its intended purpose. Our governments current method of over-taxation is far more ineffecient and draining on natural resources then families buying SUV's and living in the suburbs.

Its interesting the someone would think that having too much freedom is a bad thing and that the government is needed to reduce people choices of tranportation by taking their money away from them to solve the problem (real or imagined).

Leave families and their SUV's alone on focus on reducing the size and inefficiencies of our government.

 

My point was that if a 410HP corvette can get 28MPG on the highway, we wouldn't have to drive small or micro-cars to make a significant reduction in the amount of fuel we consume.

But I'm still waiting for the answer to these questions - what do we do when we run out of gas? what do we do to maintain the supply of gas until real alternatives exist (which may be decades in the future)? How do we protect the economy, which relies on the inexpensive transport of goods? How can we have fewer US lives lost in Mid-East conflicts?

 

Grammaticaly, you speak very good english, what's your story?

 

Our fuel supply is not running out for a loooooong time. It is a fact that it is a finite source, which is why things are already being worked on for the future. Sorry I dont have the same gloom and doom attitude, but I agree with socal. And I think our gas prices have already reached that point of in between you wish, its hardly cheap any more.

Oh, and what do I drive? No hiding here

~15 mpg Tahoe
~8-12 MPG Z-28
~16 MPG 9C1 caprice
~30 MPG GTO on the way, but hopefully I will have that below 20 soon after I pick it up

I have a wife, 2 children, and one on the way. Sorry, but the mini auto just wouldnt cut it for us, so = Tahoe. Z-28, more of a hobby now than anything. a 95 with 35,000 miles obviously isnt on the road much anymore. The caprice? My winter beater/mileage beater (commuting an hour each way for the time being), AND big enough to transpo the kids and their gear when the need arises. But, if the eco-guerrillas have their way, perhaps I could just buy 2 of the little econo buggies and just tow the 2nd around full time to get the family and gear around. Hmmmmm, perhaps I should get a 3rd in case family is visiting *choo choo*

 

That kinda defeats the purpose of better gas mileage....

Plus those cars can barely pull their own weight let alone 3 times that

 

I believe the vette does get ~30 mpg freeway
Well, I doubt either of us will be alive to see this, but mutiple approaches are already being worked on.
As said before, we have plenty of time. Alternatives already exist, and I'm sure they will be much better when needed.

By overtaxation? No. But, perhaps this transp of goods internationally uses way too much fuel (planes, ships, etc ya know). Perhaps we should stop this to save ourselves
Um, I think we've improved on this already, but I think I remember an attack on US soil which provoked our last 2 mid-east conflicts. And the other recent one? Well, as I recall, kuwait was invaded and it was apparent there were plans to move into saudi arabia and other countries. Hitler ring a bell? That war, which was a UN mission, was about preserving a countries autonomy, and denying expanionism. a la the *****. But, I'm sure that would have been better had saddam succeded, because he could have eventually gained control of the majority of the worlds oil production, and we'd all be driving econo boxes now....because it would have simply been another govornment controlling our fuel consumption.

 

We are not going to run out of oil any time soon. There's plenty untapped oil all through out the continental USA, Alaska, Mexico, Africa, South America, Mideast ,and etc.

Alternatives are already in the works but it will still be at least another decade until real cheap alternatives can appear to give people the performance of a gasoline car but with less emissions and better milage (like fuel cells and etc). People are still refusing to pay a $5000- $10,000 premium over and above the standard price to drive Hybrid-version of an econobox.

If you want fewer lives lost in the Mideast then buy gas from gas stations who dont get their oil (or very little of their oil anyway) from the mideast. visit www.boycott-middle-east-oil.com



Often those who think they are doing humanity a favor by imposing new taxes and laws are the ones who will rob us of our freedom because they believe their cause is morally just.

Here's one of my favorite quotes:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it victims may be the most oppresive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satisfied; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience”

CS Lewis

 

So why is it that there are "evil dictators" and "rogue nations" all over the globe, but we tend to concentrate our efforts on the Middle east? Why do we go to war against a nation that "might have weapons of mass distruction" when another nation that readily hates us freely admits that they have them?

 

werm,

Your fanstasy scenario why boycotting mideast oil wont work is as absurd as your desire to tax American families into smaller cars.

Out here in California there is more oil underneath the Pacific Ocean and other locations like you can't beleive but since environmentalist have gone nuts and have almost completely stopped future drilling off the Californian coast and it has only made us more dependent on foreign oil. Modern drilling technology that is used in the US is cleaner and safer to the environment then ever before. Environmentalist dont seem to care if oil gets drilled in foreign countries where the standards of other countries are far worse then ours and those countries cause far more pollution in the process of drilling as well. I guess they like the idea"out of site out of mind", since we (Americans) can drill cleaner and safer then anyone else in the world.

One has to ask themselves why do these Mideast oil rich countries seem to all suffer from the same fate and tend to be virtually all tyrannical states in which the masses live in poverty while the royal families live in absolute luxury. If you divided the wealth of these rich oil countries evenly among their people , each citizen in those countries would have more money per-capita and live a higher standard of living then most Americans.

One main problem is that the "easy" oil money tends to stiffle the creation of an American-type "entrepeneur-class" that would create new industries and innovations and other of methods of income for those countries to expand upon besides the revenue generated by pumping crude. Without getting completely off subject, those Mideast countries hostility towards religious and secular freedom in both a person's personal and political beliefs is also one of the major factors why those countries continue to suffer.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members currently supply about 55% of the oil traded internationally and 15% of the world's natural gas. OPEC restricts the free-trade of oil by presetting and artificially limiting production of oil rather then letting the open-market dictate the appropriate price and production. OPEC's keeps the price gasoline artificially higher then it should by limiting and/or reducing the amount of crude oil available to the global economy though it's self-imposed quota system .

Many of those within OPEC's ultra-rich elite funnel millions of dollars into anti-American extremist groups in order to get the masses within those countries (who are mostly poor) to blame and redirect their anger toward the USA instead of their own countries oppressive and tyrannical leaders and/or failing social/economic systems (mostly NON-democratic).

OPEC member countries are the following: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela.

Unfortunately ecological Fascists/terrorists exist in our own country - Earth Liberation Front (ELF) http://www.earthliberationfront.com/main.shtml

 

there just a bunch of little econo pos's

 

Wow, and I thought cars here today looked like ****.

LOL

 

Those little cars are terrible

 

ugh, raise a gas tax? Are you crazy? Heh, you want to give the government even MORE money to waste?!

If you're concern, then you can start driving an compact eco car everywhere and donate all the $$$ you saved on gas to the local transportation fund.. Don't force me to do the same..