And yet stronger than your analytic abilities.

Seriously, I think you are unworthy of debate. I gave you one last shot, took you off ignore and you only reaffirm my previous conclusion.

You're a tool.

No offense. Just a fact.

Your demon lost tonight. Go take it out on someone else.

Back on ignore you go.

I'm trying to make sense of this model.
In the US, we purchase about 400,000,000 gallons of gasoline each day
The Federal tax rate is $.184 per gallon
This generates approximately $74 million in gasoline tax each day
If the gas tax is suspended for 4 months; June, July, August, September, the feds lose about $8.9 billion

The proposal is to tax the profits of oil companies to make up the difference. I am going to assume that in fairness, you can only tax the profits oil companies make from, uh, gasoline sales; anything else would never get through Congress.

Oil company profits are by all measures, what we business folks call an embarrassment of riches. However, for Exxon Mobile, Shell, BP, and others, profits from gasoline sales represents 40 - 55% of operating profits. The rest comes from other sources of oil-related sales.

The combined gasoline-related operating profits from the three largest producers in the US will be approximately $57 billion for the fiscal year ending 2008. The balance of the math is quite easy; Congress would require oil companies to pay an additional tax of nearly 10% on gasoline related profits - over and above their effective tax rate of 27-34% or in effect a 16% increase in taxes to an effective rate of 39% at the highest end.

Now, there may be sound reason to encourage a windfall tax on oil companies, but I struggle to see how we might levy this in a way that passes the test of reasonable man and recovers the amounts lost from federal taxes on each gallon.

BTW - the state and local taxes on gasoline are much higher than federal taxes, averaging about $.27 per gallon.

Stiles, I am very happy you are such an expert and "have years of direct experience with engines in general (including that one, in 1960's Ford cars) and many certifications, degrees, etc in the auto field along with a heavy technical and real-world auto experience." Thank you for sharing your vast store of automobile knowledge with us poor ignorant knuckle draggers.

You know, sometimes some of you people really gripe my ass. We always say that we need to work on alternative forms of energy when in fact people have been working on it for years. Many have had some success. In most cases they have been stopped and/or hindered by the government and the big oil companies.

There have been way too many articles about high mileage carburetors not to believe someone has not worked on one. I personally found the reports of the Pogue Carburetor interesting.

"Apr. 30,1936 J1-A,18 CARBURETION, FORD MOTOR CO. FORD MOTOR CO., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: Tests the POGUE Carburetor and is at "a loss to understand" how the carburetor got "25.7 miles on one pint of gasoline"! (That's approximately 205 mpg). Mr. W.J. Holmes and Mr. Purdy conducted the test for FORD MOTOR CO. (see 1/7/36)"

I will admit I have never seen one. Perhaps it does not exist. Then again, perhaps you it does. We have only your word that you have all of the experience and knowledge you have previously claimed to have. For all I know you may be a shill who is putting out disinformation for some oil company. Perhaps you are looking at a 150 mile carburetor sitting on your shelf even as we speak. I would say that is probably not the case, but who knows. Perhaps you are posting from a controlled access environment where you are only allowed to be out of your room at certain times. Perhaps you are wearing a tinfoil hat.

In any case, my mind is open to possibilities while yours is obviously locked in your own conservative little world as you laugh at and find fault with anyone who has a different opinion that yours.

FTR - MY APOLOGIES SIR FOR SEEMINGLY HIJACKING YOUR THREAD. THAT WAS NOT MY INTENTION.

a) How do you propose to break physical law? Because that's what you're asking the carburettor to do.

b) Do you think that the large number of reports of UFOs mean they must be real?

a) At one time they thought that flight was impossible due to physical law. Just because we do not understand it does not mean that it is not possible.

b) I am not going to say that UFOs are real or not, but how do you know they aren't. A lot of intelligent people claim to have seen them.

All I am trying to say is we need to keep an open mind. If you believe for a minute that the government would not supress technology in an effort to pander to big oil then you are deluded. I find that as easy to believe in as anything else.

Hey new guy -

Y'know what "gripes my ass"?
People who don't have the faintest idea of how cars work, yet are the first to put out gross misinformation, speculation and flat-out lies under the cover of conspiracy theories. You can't prove shit but that won't stop you from railing at those who do, in fact, know what they are talking about.

I have nothing to prove to anyone on this board or elsewhere. I suggest you stop whining and learn something about the subject at hand, lest you continue to look like an idiot. Straighten up and fly right.

PS - let me know when you create a perpetual motion machine.

Ooohhhh perpetual motion machine; I can find investors for that!

Well, you could, if I didn't have the only working one under my desk right now...

PS - John Rockefeller's ghost paid me $500,000 in untraceable silver certificates to squire it away from the inventor, a brilliant yet penniless farmer from Iowa who died mysteriously at 90 from unidentified causes.

I don't doubt that people have seen UFOs, and I should have been more careful with my wording. There is a difference between a UFO and an alien spaceship, though. Those, I have no difficulty at all in writing off as delusion or outright lies.

There's a difference between technology and science. Science is hard to suppress, especially when it's as basic as that. That's what blows the 200mpg carburettor out of the water.

See, this would be an further example of crap debate skills. "You're a moron," "you're a tool," and "read my article" are not points. A better way to discredit my arguments would be to, you know, make a counter-argument. Saying I'm unworthy of debate and then ignoring me might make you seem awesome, but, all it means is that you proved nothing.

I even had the balls to freely admit that her gas tax plan wasn't a very good one and was essentially pointless, yet you still feel the need to call me a demon follower and whip out the 8th grade insults. I know this is just a fucking porn site, but I thought we could raise the level of discussion just a tad.

okokok, so i often agree with most of FTR's original articles, i am an Obama fan, and I hate Hillary... but i do have to agree that the longer "debates" go on in these threads, FTR you get too annoyed and emotional and do lose a lot of the confidence and factual knowledge you start off with. You do not have to answer every single thing someone says. When you simply ask for proof of their statement, that works. And sometimes an actual exchange of information and option happens.... but yes, your debate skills deteriorate more than not.

thaaaat said, fuck the gas tax holiday. regardless of the difference between McCain and Clintons versions.... NEITHER actually FIXES our gas "crisis" or has any real defense against final price per gallon prices. And neither really encourages people to drive more effeciently. At least on MSNBC's Morning Joe the other morning Obama mentioned something to affect of "asking" (haha like anyone will listen, but hey he's trying) people to try to eliminate one trip a week (say, the fat fuck who starts his car and drives 5 blocks to go to a McDonald's drive-thru... instead of maybe WALKING 5 blocks to a grocery store and buying some fucking veggies -- but that is a side bar, forgive me).

and 100 Economists... who last i checked have some sort of knowledge of money and how it works, think the gas tax holiday is awful.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Yeah. There are three or four people on these boards who I consider to be total fucking idiots. I have little tolerance for their ongoing stupidity. My "debate skills" do not deteriorate. That would imply I am debating. When I call a douchbag a retard, it means I am ending the conversation. Debating with morons on the internet is about as big of a waste of time as I can think of. These fools have a history of being useless and I will continue to treat them as such. There are many people on the boards who I do not call out for their inferiority, and enjoy their opinions and insights.

fair enough. ill chalk it up to "not worth it" based on a history i am unaware of. but i still think either not responding or responding with info to shut them up is stronger. but, i digress -- unimportant, really.