Electric Vehicles

 

Electric Vehicles

The Unintended Consequences!

Written by Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown April 30, 2022

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There is an obvious move towards electric cars; part of the Green New Deal.  I recently read an email that a friend sent to me showing how electric car owners are outraged that some states are now adding an annual fee for both Hybrid cars and especially Electric car.  If the object of purchasing an electric car was to reduce the dependency upon fossil fuels, that objective may be met by purchasing such a car.  However, electric cars must still transit our roads and highways and cross our bridges and pass through our tunnels.  Most of these avenues are funded and maintained by through the collecting of taxes on the sale of gasoline products. 

 

If you have never given much consideration to the amount of taxes collected, you should.  If everyone were to suddenly own and operate an electric car, there would be no such funds to maintain and build our highway system.  Do you honestly believe that the same government that promotes electric car ownership is going to simply give away the ungodly amounts of money it currently receives via gasoline taxes?  The simple answer is Hell No!  Check out this site to see how much money YOU pay in gasoline taxes in YOUR state and then go to the bottom of the site to add in what the Federal Government receives through the federal tax is collects on each gallon of gasoline.  Contrary to popular belief, California is NOT the highest gasoline tax in the country, that honor goes to Pennsylvania, the state where I believe oil was originally discovered in America.  https://igentax.com/gas-tax-state/  I checked my state of Louisiana.  State gasoline tax is 20 cents A GALLON!  And…according to the site, the Federal Government adds an additional 18.4 cents A GALLON bringing the total for Louisiana to 38.4 cents A GALLON in collected taxes that neither the State or the Feds would be collecting if I purchased an electric car.  Doesn’t sound like a lot until you multiply that by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people across the United States.  Then suddenly you realize the magnitude of the problem that both the State government and the Federal government has created for themselves by promoting electric vehicles as well as other tools that use gasoline like lawnmowers.  Neither will let the reduced tax revenues stand without taking actions to tax us in other ways!  That is what governments do!

WHAT IS MOTOR FUEL TAX REVENUE USED FOR?  (from the above linked site)

In 2019, revenues from the transportation fund were over $44 billion (with a B).

Depending on the jurisdiction, some of the revenue from gasoline and diesel taxes can only be used for transportation related programs like improving infrastructure. Other jurisdictions allow the revenues to be added to the general fund which is used for a variety of programs.

The emboldened and underlined portion of the above excerpt was done by me to emphasize that while the axes are “said” to be collected to improvement maintain our highway system, in reality only a portion of the tax is used for that purpose.  The question then arises as to what happens to government funded organizations and projects that will not experience a reduction in the amount of money, they receive because of reduced gasoline consumption?  Also, what happens to road construction, road maintenance and related salaries when the income from the gasoline is reduced?  This is what is referred to as collateral damage.  Every action has a corresponding reaction and this is a perfect example.

Is it fair to everyone who buys gasoline to now singularly have the burden to shoulder the  cost of maintaining our highways?  Or should people who no longer buy gasoline be exempt from the responsibility of maintaining the roads they transit in their electric cars?  Can you understand why gasoline car owners are angry that they now support the highways and their fellow citizens who take advantage of the same roadways, do not?  Can you also understand why electric car owners who bought electric cars to supposedly support the desire to move away from fossil fuels are now angry because they are being taxed for purchasing such a car or truck?  https://www.thedenverchannel.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/hybrid-and-electric-car-owners-furious-about-new-taxes

The hit on State and Federal revenues projects to be enormous as more and more people are purchasing not only electric cars and trucks but also electric lawnmowers and other tools at home and in businesses that heretofore used gasoline powered tools.  Knowing how our government works, they will NOT allow this to stand, they simply won’t!  As long as the current government continues to grow and expand, we the people will be continually taxed, one way or another.

Our government has NEVER known a tax it didn’t like!  Once a tax is imposed, it is rarely if ever reduced or eliminated; that’s the way our government operates!

As Paul Harvey has said, “and now for the rest of the story.”  The rest of the story is very simple to understand.  Most if not all of the electric batteries come from China or at least the elements required to make them come from China.  That puts China in the position of simply stopping the flow of batteries and/or elements to the United States to put us in a very difficult predicament.  That is not the end of the story because batteries die and must be replaced.  Replacing them again puts us in the cross-hairs and mercy of China.  Still, there is another aspect of all of these batteries that none of the folks promoting the Green New Deal seemed to have addressed.  What do you do with all of the batteries that die and need disposing of?  Do you then dump them into the ocean or use them for landfill debris?  How is that helping the environment and planet.  We have learned this lesson from windmill parts that now have to be disposed of and no one know quite how to properly do it.  The same will apply to disused electric car batteries WHICH BY THE WAY ARE VERY EXPENSIVE TO REPLACE.

MORE EXAMPLES OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

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