Perhaps the other nations are adding in the tax to counter the true social cost, beyond simply maintaining roads. Here in America, where we have quite a lot of room for suburban sprawl. Building new U.S. roads(and parking lots, and on ramps, and gas-stations, and all the rest of the structures that go along with cars) is cheap in comparison to the cost of the loss of land in Europe which could be put to other use. So, rather than pave the whole country, they use the tax to maintain existing roads, subsidize alternate transportation, and limit the need for new roads by discouraging excessive car use. In Europe, passenger rail is heavily subsidized. Travel by European rail is relatively cheap for the individual. (OK, yes they're paying it in taxes, but if they're getting a tangible benefit back. . . .) Here AMTRAK is expensive because it's expected to attempt to turn a profit and it's subsidy is on the chopping block every year. Yet, no one expects our ROADS to be profitable. If they were, tolls for use of the U.S. Interstate System from Columbus, Ohio to Orlando, Florida could be several hundred dollars, making an train ticket to Disney World look very appealing. It's all a trade off. -----Original Message----- From: Wayne R. Boyer [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 8:58 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: [HP3000-L] Gas Price Whining In a message dated 8/27/03 1:14:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: > We've known for some time that our gasoline is artificially cheap. I dispute that. Many other nations simply have far higher gas taxes causing their resulting total gas prices to be artificially higher than ours. If they would stop hurting their citizens with high gas taxes, they too would have prices like ours - or lower! Wayne * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html * * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *