Only in Sacramento, California, Does This Make Sense

Posted on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Post Scripts

by Jack

One of the many hundreds of boards and commissions that were created by the State Legislature is the one that regulates the tax on gasoline.  Wait, did I just say tax?  My bad, according to Sacramento that’s a misnomer.  It’s not a tax… it’s a revenue neutral regulatory adjustment!   Back to the story,  so it seems that because California enjoys the highest pump prices in the nation, outside of Hawaii, there has been a drop in gasoline consumption and in turn a drop in tax revenue to the State.  (Duh-uh, imagine that)  This shocking revelation caused the gasoline tax board to spring into action:  Californian’s will see a rise in the cost of gallon of gasoline.  The non-elected board is adding on a 3.5 cent “revenue neutral” adjustment, not a tax, effective July 1, 2013.

If you continue to drive less or switch to a go kart sized hybrid to cut your personal consumption, your reward will be another revenue neutral adjustment because you can’t beat this system.   Only in Sacramento does this make a whit of sense and only government can defeat the first law of econ0mics that says supply and demand regulate the price of a thing.)

The current CA tax on a gallon of gasoline is 37 cents and the state wants to keep it around 10% of the pump price, so what they are telling us is, get used to paying $4 plus a gallon.

 

 

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One Response to Only in Sacramento, California, Does This Make Sense

  1. Tina says:
    Friday, March 1, 2013 at 10:14 pm

    Gee Jack, $4.00 a gallon is pretty close to what the greens In California (and Obama) want as part of the plan to force their alternative fuels and lifestyles. This should act as a signal to most low information voters that the democrats are not their friends…it should, but it won’t.

    City Journal has a very informative article on the oil in California that could be tapped. It doesn’t pull punches either. Here’s an excerpt that shows what we are withholding from ourselves with the insanity:

    In July 2011, the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated that the Monterey had 15.4 billion barrels of recoverable crude—four times what’s estimated to lie within the Bakken shale formation, which is fueling North Dakota’s current oil boom. Those 15.4 billion barrels would be worth about $1.5 trillion at today’s crude prices.

    The potential impact of 15.4 billion barrels of oil is enormous. Even if California managed to tap just half of that quantity over the next 35 years, the state would be adding an average of 220 million barrels a year—doubling its current output and matching its peak year of 1985. It would also be pumping $22 billion each year into its economy if crude prices stayed near their current levels (in light of global demand, it’s more likely that prices will rise). If the EIA estimate is reasonably close to the mark, the Monterey Formation would be in a class with oil fields in Saudi Arabia. “Having a field like this on American soil would be a game changer for American dependence on foreign imports,” says Chris Faulkner, CEO of the Dallas-based exploration company Breitling Oil and Gas.

    The state could certainly use an oil boom right now. Its jobless rate is stubbornly running nearly 3 percentage points above the national average, and most new drilling in the Monterey Formation would be taking place in the San Joaquin Valley, where unemployment is chronically high. (In the four counties most likely to be sites for drilling—Kern, Fresno, Tulare, and Kings—the March 2012 jobless rate averaged 17.5 percent, compared with 11.5 percent for the state as a whole.)

    Keeping Californians out of work and struggling is a small price to pay to stop that drop in the ocean contribution to climate disruptions or whatever the hell they are calling it this week.

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