Response to a response

I received a comment from Jon-Roy Sloan on a posting of mine which suggested that Congress enact an increase in the federal gasoline tax to encourage drivers to conserve fuel, and thereby mitigate several problems facing our nation. The original posting came almost a year ago, when gasoline prices had declined so far that an additional dollar per gallon would have left prices well below what they had been even a few months before. Since the comment goes far beyond that rather narrow topic, I thought it merited a separate discussion.

Here's Sloan's comment, in full, with its native grammatical blemishes:

Why do want the government to regulate every portion of our lives? Do you seriously believe what you are saying? You want government to take even more of my hard earned money and give a rebate to low-income earners? I worked hard, school, military, grad school, to get where I am and you want to take it away because you believe the sky is falling? The weatherman can't accurately predict the weather for more than 24 hours out, and they have only been able to that for the past 8-10 years and you expect me to believe in Al Gore. Apparently your not from Tennessee, there is a reason Tennesseans didn't vote for him in 2000, he is a LIAR and a CHEAT!

I find his comment of considerable interest, particularly because much of what he says isn't at all related to the posting. I'll take his comments point by point.

I was not advocating that government "regulate every portion of our lives." Indeed, quite the contrary. I feel very strongly, for instance, that government should not regulate private behavior which does not adversely affect the interests of other people. For instance, I favor the right of loving couples to marry, regardless of the race or gender(s) of the couple; I favor the right of people to hold and voice the political views they favor regardless of whether their views offend others or even call into question the political and economic policies of the nation at large, I favor the right of individuals to write and publish and read whatever they choose, and I favor the right of all of us to live free from bigotry regardless of our ethnicity, gender, religiosity, or sexual orientation. I may be making an enormously incorrect assumption about Sloan's ideology, but I wonder if he feels the same way?

Yes, I do seriously believe what I am saying. I would not have wanted to take the effort of writing if I didn't, and I think it does little for the sake of discourse to doubt the seriousness with which others propound their opinions.

I gather Sloan opposes the concept of either progressive taxation or government expenditures which do not favor the wealthy, or both. I disagree. The existence, let alone the growth, of substantial income disparities weakens the fibers holding our nation together, yet ever since the so-called "Reagan revolution" that is exactly what has been happening. Income disparities are at their greatest level since such records began to be kept over a century ago. I'm not going to go into the specifics here, as there is a lot of commentary and data supporting this assertion; highly readable collections of resources for those interested can be found in the writings of folks such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich. Indeed, I should think that even the very wealthy would be concerned, lest the disparities spark such political turmoil as could threaten their own privileged position. Reduction of those disparities would be of common interest for this reason, if no other. But there are other reasons. A broader sharing of the nation's wealth would promote the national interest by stimulating productivity, encouraging growth, and building a richer, stronger and more cohesive nation. (You'll notice I say nothing here about the ethical implications of such disparities, but I would argue that they are of even greater moment.)

In reply to Sloan's specific complaint about using federal tax policy to transfer some of the wealth of the very affluent to the very poor, I would say "yes." We saw during the Bush years how ineffective and unjust tax policies were when they served to transfer tax burden to the working poor and lower middle class from the very wealthy, and how little those policies did to benefit the nation at large (and here I am being generous). It is time to reverse that trend, and restore some economic justice to our tax system. Frankly, for starters, I'd be happy to see it revert to the level of progressivity we saw during the Reagan years.

What I'm guessing that Sloan is missing here is any understanding of how more equitable federal tax and expenditure policy can benefit the nation at large. Higher education provides one of the most obvious examples, as expenditure and tax policies which make college more affordable for students from less affluent families not only expand the horizons of those students, but enrich the nation at large by increasing our national intellectual capital. Or take the issue that seems to stir Sloan's ire. Higher gasoline prices encourage Americans to use less fuel, either by eliminating unnecessary driving, driving more fuel efficient vehicles, using mass transit more, or biking and walking more. Each of these alternatives provide multiple benefits, among them being a reduction of American reliance on foreign oil (which benefits the economy and national security), reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (which benefits our health, environment, and ability to deal with environmental degradation) and our quality of life (by leading to better exercise, less traffic congestion), while simultaneously providing motivation for our automobile manufacturers to become more globally competitive.

Sloan doesn't like the idea of tax rebates for the working poor, but he is ignoring (or is blind to) a basic question of equity. The working poor are the people least able to upgrade their automobile choices to more modern fuel efficient vehicles, and are most likely to be stuck with older, less efficient cars. A tax -- whether directly imposed by the government or indirectly imposed by the marketplace -- which has the effect of dissuading people from driving gas hogs hits them the hardest, but a rebate of the tax they paid can mitigate that impact, and do so in a very productive way by further encouraging them to switch to more fuel efficient transportation.

Sloan also misses a key aspect of a rebate: the rebate of gas taxes paid by poor consumers to those same consumers is not a transfer of tax revenues from the affluent driver Sloan seems to favor, but a return to the working poor of taxes the working poor have paid out of their own funds.

He also misses the sad fact that many of the working poor work hard too. They just don't have the advantages Sloan presumably has (e.g., college education, including a graduate education), so their hard work doesn't provide them with the income Sloan's hard work provides. That's testimony to a difference in opportunity, not in effort or virtue.

Despite his good education, Sloan then segues into an ignorant dismissal of issues relating to global warming, confusing the uncertainties of short-term weather forecasting with the causes, nature and consequences of global warming. And no, I don't expect Sloan to "believe in Al Gore" (whatever that means) but I do expect any educated and informed human being to be impressed by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community regarding global warming, and to participate in a serious discussion of the issues rather than retreat into silly ad hominem attacks on a single individual, especially ones based on personal anger over matters totally unrelated to the topic nominally at issue.