From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 14:44:30 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.041755.4485@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:

[In a letter to Bill Clinton...]
>Re: A Simple Way to Save the Economy, and the Planet, Too!

If this had been someone other than Vandeman, I would have taken this as satire,
but...

>     Believe it or not, there is a simple way to save our economy,
>restore social equity, and save the planet, with one act!

>     The world is broke. We need a source of funds to pay off the
>national debt, protect our citizens, and protect the environment.

Is there no need to use funds to produce goods and services?  I guess not...
we have plents of all that, right?

>It should be a sustainable source, not achieved by liquidating more
>of our natural resources.

Is the money of "rich people" a sustainable resource?

>     The answer is staring us in the face: take it from the rich,
>who have far too much already. 

Who is "rich"?  By what standard do you judge that they have "too much"?
Too much for what?  Why is it any of your business to tell other people 
whether they can EARN that money?  If you want to spend it, YOU earn it.
 
>It is obvious that much that is
>wrong with our country is due to the unconscionable gap between the
>rich and poor. 

By what standard do you judge that people who have earned their income  and
have become rich by their own effort do not deserve their money, while those
who have not earned it do?  It may offend your knee-jerk sentimentality,
but you'll have to provide us with stronger stuff if you hope to win any
converts.

What do you think that these aweful rich people do with their money?  Stash
it in a mattress?  Spend it all on luxuries?  Obviously your (constantly
mentioned) PhD is NOT in economics.

>But the key is How do we identify the "rich" and
>________________________________________________
>their "excess" wealth, in an equitable (nonarbitrary) way?
>_________________________________________________________ 

>     The answer is simple. We already know that the automobile and
>its relatives and accoutrements (e.g. roads, CFC-containing air
>conditioners, used tires, etc.) constitute the world's greatest
>threat to our environment and quality of life. 

Actually, a look at the greatest threat (by a VAST margin) to our environment
and quality of life is having leftists dictators such as yourself ordering
people around at gunpoint, looting, and ruining the economies of most of the
world.

>We also know that
>the rich own and operate motor vehicles more than the poor. 

Really?  Actually, their cars tend to be more expensive, but you can only 
drive one car at a time.  If anything, rich folks generally have more
control over where they live and thus might actually live closer than 
average to their places of work.

Of course, the real question is where you get off telling anyone else 
how much to drive, how to travel, or what have you?

Who died and left you king?  Pol Pot?

>The
>___
>answer is to apply appropriate taxes to the ownership, fuelling,
>________________________________________________________________
>and operation of automobiles and other motor vehicles,
>______________________________________________________
>approximately in proportion to the damage they do.
>_________________________________________________ 

Cars do damage?  To whom?  How much?  Why should the government get this money
rather than the "victims"?

>     This would have numerous beneficial effects: it would humanely
>                                                  _________________
>reduce the use of motor vehicles, 
>_________________________________

What's so humane about taking away yet another of my options?  Why is it
humane to rule others against their will?

>conserving our natural resources

"Our" resources?  For the time being at least we still have private property
in this country.  If you want to go the next step and explicitly nationalize
all private property, you could simplify this and just say:

"If you want to solve our environmental and economic problems, just adopt
socialism and then..."

>for more essential, environmentally sound uses (e.g. making
>toothbrushes). 

What right do you have to tell the manufacturers or users of cars OR tooth
brushes how to do their business?

>It would not force anyone to stop driving; they
>                            _____                             
>could continue to do so, 

The power to tax is the power to destroy.  Your goal is to make it impossible 
for some people to drive my making it too expensive.  Be honest about it.
If I proposed a tax on Noam Chomsky books (something I would not recommend, by
the way) you would scream bloody murder.  How is this different?

>if they simply pay a fair charge to do it:

Fair by what standard?

>it preserves our individual rights and freedoms. 

Being ordered around by the likes of you hardly preserves my rights and
freedoms.  Can you even define what a right is and why we have them?
If you think expanding government control over honest and peaceful behavior
is an example of "preserving individual rights", you need to do a little
remedial reading.

>At the same time,
>it provides much-needed funds 

Needed by whom?  You and your social planner buddies?

I must ask again, where would that money have gone otherwise?  Where would it
have been invested?  How many more goods would have been used to make
people's lives better?  How many jobs will be wiped out?  How many works of
art will go unfinished?  How many students will have to drop out of school?
How many more families will drop into poverty?  I know it's more CONVENIENT
for you to ignore these economic realities, but reality doesn't ignore 
them.

>to shift emphasis from a wasteful,
>destructive habit 

What makes you think that I choose to drive my car because of habit rather than
rational choice?  I LIKE driving.  It is very convenient, and even if YOU
don't agree, I'm not asking you to pay for my car and my gas.  You, however are
demanding that *I* pay for your little schemes.

>to more essential uses (reducing the national
>debt, education, health and environmental research, habitat
>preservation, pollution reduction, public transit. etc.).

Who gave you the authority to decide where MY money is best spent?

How much do you think would be "enough" for these purposes?  How many
lost jobs and failed lives are these goals worth?  Is giving up even more
of our liberty worth it?  

>     If too much money is provided (above that needed to repair the
>destruction caused by motor vehicles), some of it can be used to
>reduce the use of more regressive taxes, such as sales taxes and
>income taxes, which cause the rich/poor gap to widen, while
>providing little compensating benefit.

Where do you get the idea that income taxes make the income gap wider?
I pay a *LOT* more money in taxes than people who make less than I make do,
and I get very little in return.

Be that as it may, what is wrong with people's income being the result of
their creation of their own wealth?  Since not all people have the ability
or ambition to EARN the same amount of money, it is only right that they
should get differing amounts.  Who are you to tell me I should not control
the results of MY labor?

>     I would be happy to help you work out these and similar
>policies.

--Brian
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment