Study Shows Once Again Consumers Want Better Gas Mileage As Long As They Don't Have To Pay Extra To Get It

Why should consumers have to pay more for better MPG?

If you're a hypocritical Liberal you say "to protect the Earth's blood, I would gladly pay double oh and can i get a tax rebate?"

Everyone else has common sense.

Sorry Bob - but you are missing the point.

Everyone - apparently except you - would gladly take something good for free. This is pure human nature - and it is NOT a political football.

If everyone was not paying for it - why would YOU want to pay for it? Common sense says you would want it for free as well. But then - common sense cannot be assumed for all.

AS far as Liberals and Health care - I have YET to see any sentient adult that actually gets health care for free - WE ALL pay taxes. In fact - lower class people pay a far higher percent of the their income on taxes than rich conservatives do. Single Universal Payer is NOT free - it still costs the taxpayers. In Canada - they have a national sales tax to pay for it. (Several other countries do). The United States is the ONLY western country that does not have some sort of Universal Health care for all. But - nobody every suggested it would be FREE.

This is completely false: "In fact - lower class people pay a far higher percent of the their income on taxes than rich conservatives do."

Since when are Liberals taxed more than conservatives?

If we had a flat tax, I would be paying way more tax than a poor person, but because the percent INCREASES with income, I am paying more tax in two ways.

@TomM Liberals like you cannot be trusted with numbers or logic and you flat out lie.

Sorry - Matt - but YOU are the one who is wrong - YOU are looking only at the Tax Brackets - BUT IN ACTUALITY - the people who pay more of their income AFTER deductions tend to be the middle class. Example - Warren Buffet points out that his Secretary actually pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than he does AFTER deductions. And note - I said as a percentage of their income
Your complaint about total tax is not something I covered. It was something YOU added. And I probably pay more income tax than YOU do - Paying high taxes is not the result of political affiliation - it is the result of income generation. And a Liberal Billionaire pays as much as a conservative one.

If we had a flat tax - you would not get the deductions you get to offset your income - and would be paying on all your income - even that which you pay other taxes with - as well as other current deductions. The Conservatives could not get a Flat Tax through Congress because the conservatives would not stand for the inability to deduct all the things that the poorer people cannot afford to buy to begin with.

Conseratives like Matt would still be happy singing "Hail to the Queen" if they had their way - but it was liberals like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Ben Franklin who moved for independence from England. (Oh - by the way -if we were still a part of the United Kingdom - we would have Universal Health care coverage - AND people who make more money would have less deductions based on the UK tax system.)

@TomM No...YOU'RE WRONG

Let's imagine a flat tax of 10%.

A person making $25,000 owes $2,500
A person making $250,000 owes $25,000
The wealthier person owes $22,500 MORE

Even with deductions I'm paying way more tax than the average person. We're probably in the same tax bracket you and I.

The difference is that I'm not a hypocrite about taxes.

Well American health care costs are out of control. Per capita spending is over twice that of Canada. So yes if you go single payer and somehow manage to keep costs the same as they currently are then you will bankrupt yourselves. Though to be fair people are already going bankrupt just at an individual instead of government level.

Going single payer is going to cause a lot of job losses in the short term. All the middle men in the industry will suddenly be out of work. No one wants to lose their jobs so it's really hard to blame them for lobbying to stop it.

Considering every other developed nation has pulled it off at lower per capita costs than America it's really not that hard to imagine. Conservatives in places like Canada support single payer because they prefer to be financially sound as a nation. Liberals like it for helping the poor and it being "socialist policy". It isn't a partisan issue basically anywhere outside of the US.

This is a case of another "Poll" that I would want to see the actual questions - and WHO they asked.

More than 50% of the people in the USA already cannot afford to actually buy a new car -even on credit. If you ask them - how much MORE would you be willing to spend for better gas mileage - they cannot actually answer that question since they cannot buy the car anyway. Now - of course - they would LOVE to have a car that got better gas mileage - but in fact they don't have any ability to pay for it. Under those circumstance - they cannot even get it - IF it were for free.

Now add to that another hefty percentage of people who CAN barely buy a car on credit - but could not afford a higher payment. Again - unless the improvement is free - they cannot actually afford it anyway.

AND of course - add in the rich conservatives - who think that only poor people should pay for things like being "green" - they also want no part of paying for it. They consider it to be a "hoax" anyway.

When YOU add up the above three groups - it makes you wonder WHY anyone would even conduct a "POLL" like this. It would be valid ONLY if it was asked of people who COULD afford to buy new cars. Since that group is made up largely of rich conservatives - I see no reason to bash liberals on the issue.

@TomM here we go again with your hubris: "This is a case of another "Poll" that I would want to see the actual questions - and WHO they asked."

Who appointed your the arbiter of truth?

Even if you got the poll, you'd dispute it if you disagreed with it even if it were statistically valid.

Beyond that, however, we are not talking about a poll being taken but a study having been done that involved a survey. A survey and a poll are not the same thing.

Matt - here again with your NONSENSE - sorry but a "Poll" as when you "poll" a group of people for information - and a "survey" as in when you survey a group of people for information ARE indeed the same things - THey are Synonyms - and YOU can look that up in "Roget's" - since you will not Take my word for it. OF course - I should not be taking advantage of your lack of education.

Still- asking people who cannot afford to buy a new car how much they are willing to spend EXTRA for better gas mileage is still a worthless poll.

In this case - and others - I said clearly that " I "wanted to see the questions and who was asked - I never appointed myself the arbiter of truth for anyone but Myself. It is TOO BAD that you never got past second grade and never learned to READ. If you are happy without the information required to make a true decision - that is fine with me - you can put one arm in a fire and another on a block of ice - and be perfectly comfortable in between. I do not put any worth into "polls" unless I can see what the people were actually asked - and who was asked. THen I can decide whether the information derived from that has any validity to me.

@TomM Once again your ignorance is at play.

They are NOT the same.

Surveys are given to demographically specific populations to learn about a specific issue.

Polls are more cattle call in nature and therefore tend not to be demographically specific.

I do not care about a poll on the Lincoln Continental.

I will pay very close attention to a survey of Lincoln Continental owners however.

So @TomM, where did you get your doctorate from?

The headline, as many here do, miss represents the article. Many vehicle purchases, new or used, are made without regard to running cost. Generally more efficient new vehicles can be purchased for less but most give it a low priority. In the used car market there is less choice due to the decision made by others years ago, and possibly made worse by the vehicles that have the highest depreciation and thus more affordable in the used market. The majority of new vehicle buyers are making the choice to ignore efficiency which carries over to others over the life of the vehicle. Likely the only effective way to change this is a directed tax. CAFE is proving to not be an effective approach based on current sales.