Skewed tax policies encourage gas guzzlers

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Posted on June 21, 2006
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Earth spirituality

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

This is crazy!  Check out this article from the Business Section of today's NY Times.  It is a perfect example of what is all wrong with the priorities of the Bush administration as we face the immediate need to reduce our oil consumption and switch to alternative, earth-friendly fuels.

Just this year the feds began offering a generous tax break to buyers of hybrid cars.  That incentive, along with rising gas prices, began to make hybrids, specifically those made by Toyota and Honda, more affordable.  US automakers are far behind in this technology, having yet to put on the market a popular hybrid car.  Turns out that this tax incentive program was geared all along to propping up the US industry, and this article explains how.

The tax break begins to phase out when a single manufacturer passes 60,000 models sold in the US.  Toyota has already surpassed that number and Honda will follow later this year.  The tax incentives will begin to phase out by year's end and disappear next year.  Meanwhile, the hybrids that Detroit has produced together amount to a small fraction of that number, and here's the scandal.  This means that you can get a tax credit for buying Chevy's Silverado hybrid — which gets 16 MILES PER GALLON — or the Ford Escape Hybrid — boasting 26 miles per gallon, "but not a Prius (44) or a nonhybrid Corolla (29)."

I drive a 2004 Honda Civic Value Package, manual transmission, high fuel efficiency – AND I GET 40 MPG ON THE OPEN ROAD, ABOUT 36 IN THE CITY!

This is a scam, folks.  But it should suggest something to all of us — and this is a political issue that should be debated in this election year: our tax structure tells us whether or not we are serious about dealing with our carbon emissions issues, global warming, and our urgent need to reduce oil comsumption.

It is about time we stop blaming the purchasers of foreign vehicles for the problems of US automakers and start putting responsibility where it belongs — on the very automakers that continue down the same path of industry dysfunction, with a deep root sunk in the muck of denial, refusing to deal with the "realities of the real" world, and on the politicians, especially those who now dominate Congress, who are their enablers.

Be Ecological Hope!  Get involved in this!  Follow your local elections diligently.  Ask questions!  Demand clear answers.  Vote!

Ecological Hope is a project of the Center for New Creation.  Donations are tax deductible and will go towards generation of resources, workshops, an Ecological Hope web site, and more.  Checks and money orders can be made out to the Center for New Creation, earmarked EcoHope, and sent to the address in the contact box on this blog.

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