Although even if oil company profit per gallon were proportional to price (it isn’t), for them to clear as much profit as taxes take in California, gas prices would have to hit something like 20 bucks a gallon.

Like the cigarette tax, it’s another case of unintended consequences (at best). Force high-mileage cars on us, then wail that gasoline consumption is going down. It has been seriously proposed to track mileage on cars and tax that.

A grotesquely bloated State, financed by taxes, demands a society of ferocious production and great wealth to support it. I doubt that those “progressives” trying to make our country “small and beautiful” have thought it out that far.

Gasoline is taxed by the gallon, but is sold by the dollar. I.E., if the price of gas doubles, the government revenue remains the same, providing consumption remains the same.

As gas prices rise, the fraction that goes to taxes actually drops per dollar of sales, making it a relative bargain. Since a rise in prices generally means a drop in consumption as consumers ease off on their driving, the tax revenue will fall even if the cost, or even the profit, per gallon goes up.

For taxes to really play an effective role in discouraging fuel consumption, perhaps we should tax the price, so many cents per dollar, instead of so many cents per gallon. That’s how most taxes are calculated.

The responses were instructive, though.

We all know. The Conservative agenda.

This graphic shows details of cigarettes and what the government rakes in on cigarette taxes.

And yet, the government is all about smoking being evil, isn’t it? Why not just make them illegal?

There is a consistent thread through all this. It isn’t about the money.

And keep those gasoline numbers in mind when discussing how the consumer is getting ripped off by those evil oil companies. You think the guy filling his tank feels any less of a hole in his budget because the loot is going to the Glorious State instead of some cigar-munching, top-hat wearing businessman?

TB, you’re losing your grip. Even by your own reasoning, your position is unraveling

Start here.

Depending on the source and assumptions, oil company profits (net) on a gallon of gas at current prices ranges from two cents to 12.

I know why you don’t like the “footnote game.”

If I operated like others do around here, the only response I would have needed to give to the original post was that the the Union of Concerned Scientists is a load of political hacks whose leftist agenda is a mile wide and always has been.

From the Wiki article:
“The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) is a politically conservative think tank established in 1984 in Washington, D.C. with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1980s, the Institute was engaged primarily in lobbying in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative.[1] Since the late 1980s, the Institute has put forward environmental skepticism views, and in particular has disputed mainstream scientific opinion on climate change, although it continues to be active on defense policy. The George C. Marshall Institute has been described by Newsweek as a “central cog in the denial machine.”[2] The institute is named after the World War II military leader and statesman George C. Marshall.”

“Historian Naomi Oreskes states that the institute has, in order to resist and delay regulation, lobbied politically to create a false public perception of scientific uncertainty over the negative effects of second-hand smoke, the carcinogenic nature of tobacco smoking, the existence of acid rain, and on the evidence between CFCs and ozone depletion.”

Is anyone reading this really surprised? Don’t just take my word for it, Google George C Marshall Institute, Koch Brothers. This outfit is all over the net.