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by riku_iki 1014 days ago
I don't see how you come to such conclusion, I think $2/gallon tax will be some fraction of total ownership cost for the car (fuel, car cost, insurance, maintenance), those who can't afford that fraction can't afford car too.
1 comments

There are many people out there who can barely afford a car. On average gasoline accounts for ~16% of people's transportation budgets and ~2.5% of their take-home pay (obviously, these numbers are using average everything). A $2/gallon tax is an increase of a little more than 50% (not in California, but using the US average price). So that's more than 1.25% of their tax home pay and 8% of their transportation cost. That's a lot. And again, those are averages. For people at the bottom it's worse.

It's not a lot if you are making six-figures. But for a lot of people it quite literally puts driving to work as too expensive.

> So that's more than 1.25% of their tax home pay

its totally not a lot given we are talking about future of planet and humanity and that penalties on children of exactly the same people will be much higher if we won't stop pollute the planet.

If the only way to save the "future of humanity" is by sacrificing the poor, I don't want to save humanity.
tax is applied on everyone in proportion they release CO2. "Poor" can move to public transit or optimize their routes. What do you propose?