🚀 go-pugleaf

Rather than creating polar extremes between "hicks" and "city, yuppie scum,"
to use previous posters ill-chosen words, we should discuss a growth
management plan that is no less fair to a particular group of citizens.
If growth continues to go unmanaged, just about all rural places will
become either urban or suburban.  Maybe not within your lifetime, but
dammit, we have to grit out teeth and think long term not short term.
Just ask the folks in Calvert County how protected rural areas are to
expanding citizenry.

I agree that the gasoline tax in the US is one of the *WORST* policies
we have, both for the environment and our mind set.  It should be raised
at least $1 per gallon above the present level.  Some going to federal,
some going to local govts.  Some going to mass transit, some going to
environmental issues, some going to alternate energy research, etc.
If we continue to think that gasoline is free (for the nominal amount
we pay, it basically is free), more long term harm is to be had than
short term gain.  I'd like to see a gasoline tax of at least $2 a gallon,
maybe that would force people to think about whether to drive or find
an alternate way to get somewhere, or even an alternate way to solve their
problem other than to go somewhere.

You say that rural citizens would be hurt by a higher gasoline tax since
they need to use more gasoline than (sub)urban citizens.  That is a closed
view that doesn't take into consideration changes in lifestyle and
location.  You can't have everything, and Americans have to begin to
think that way instead of our current way.  (Sub)Urban citizens sacrifice
some things by living in their setting, some tangible and some less
tangible, and so do rural citizens.  Another sacrifice is necessary for
the good of society and the environment.  Let's discuss what that
sacrifice(s) should be and how it can be distributed among our various
citizen groups instead of denying that we need one.

A member of your community (the community of reasonable people and the earth),
+Rick

-- 
  Richard "carm" Chimera                  |  Zorched by Zarches,
  Human Computer Interaction Lab, U Md.   |  spaceman Spiff's
  A.V. Williams Bldg, room 3174           |  crippled craft crashes
  College Park, MD  20742-3255            |  on planet Plootarg!