"John Smith" wrote in message
news:KR7rc.39570$6f5.4166619@attbi_s54...



"basskisser" wrote in message
om...
"Calif Bill" wrote in message
news:CXVqc.3073
And I was driving in 1970, and it wasn't easy to make sure I had
enough gas to make it to school and back. It sucked then, and it sucks
now, so what is the point?

That you like to bitch about everything.

If you want to decrease the consumption of gas in the US, you need to
provide incentives for people using energy efficient transportation. The
most effective way is the increase the cost of gas. All Europeans
countries
tax the hell out of gas, to keep consumption down.






They tax the hell out of gas to keep a socialist lifestyle going while
hiding the true costs. Also, the public transit is great. Part of it is
the high density of cities and reasonable ticket prices. Go anywhere within
central Paris for about $0.75. A carnet of tickets (10) was about $5.80 in
2002. Just like the NY subway, change trains and get anywhere within the
major Paris area for that one ticket. Compare that to out local BART mass
transit. From the Dublin Station to Oakland is $2.10 and if you want to go
the extra 1.5 mile to the Oakland airport, get on the BART Shuttle that
requires a $2 BART ticket and does not start running until 7am, even though
BART runs at 4AM. Makes it damn hard to use BART for early morning business
trips to SoCal. Used to take the 7am flight, and with security need to be
there are 6am. Mass transit is not ususable for this. over $10 RT to San
Francisco. 2 people in a car drive cheaper. 3 people do not even have to
pay a bridge toll. There are areas, where you can pick up commuters to get
the bridge free. Central Europe is not very big, compared to most of the
US.

Calif Bill wrote:

"John Smith" wrote in message
news:KR7rc.39570$6f5.4166619@attbi_s54...



"basskisser" wrote in message
.com...

"Calif Bill" wrote in message

news:CXVqc.3073

And I was driving in 1970, and it wasn't easy to make sure I had
enough gas to make it to school and back. It sucked then, and it sucks
now, so what is the point?

That you like to bitch about everything.

If you want to decrease the consumption of gas in the US, you need to
provide incentives for people using energy efficient transportation. The
most effective way is the increase the cost of gas. All Europeans

countries

tax the hell out of gas, to keep consumption down.







They tax the hell out of gas to keep a socialist lifestyle going while
hiding the true costs.


Ah, yes...that danged socialist lifestyle...decent health care for
everyone, inexpensive higher education, decent housing, hardly any
homeless, lower crime rates, lower rates of violence, less infant death
mortality...awful, eh?


Also, the public transit is great.

Well, you know about that danged socialist lifestyle...with decent
public transit.

Different people wrote (sorry, I lost the attributions, but I make my point
in general, not to refute any particular person)"

If you want to decrease the consumption of gas in the US, you need to
provide incentives for people using energy efficient transportation.
The
most effective way is the increase the cost of gas. All Europeans
countries

tax the hell out of gas, to keep consumption down.

They tax the hell out of gas to keep a socialist lifestyle going while
hiding the true costs.

Also, the public transit is great.

It may or may not be used to fund unnecessary "socialist" government
programs. I'm not here to argue that.

But, having been in Europe for over 5 months over the past few years, and
having driven from the tip of Italy to northern Norway and from the
Netherlands to far east side of Slovakia, I'd have to say they have a very
strong interest in keeping automobile use and fuel consumption down as much
as they can for AIR POLLUTION and TRAFFIC CONGESTION reasons. Have you
driven in the traffic or breathed the air in urban Europe lately???

Those reasons, in and of themselves, are valid reasons for society -
collectively through their political system - to take control through means
such as fuel and vehicle taxes and funding decent mass transit through, yes,
user's fees and taxes. To me, it is entirely reasonable for European
countries -as well as some localities and states in the US - to do this and
it has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism might be another reason, but
these stand alone as reasonable and valid, imho.

Cam