Noah Abbott - Pollution Tax

Raising the taxes on gas will bring in much more money for the federal government. According to Travis Brown, if the gas tax was raised by $1, it would bring in  $100 billion dollars for the federal government to spend on many things (Brown, howmoneywalks.com, 2015). The economy would overall be better if we raised these taxes by just $1. This money would better help the transportation systems, public schools, or anything else that is federally funded.

Raising the taxes on gas would put even more pressure on most Americans. Emma Boone states that the gas tax will increase the price for many other consumers goods, which will hurt middle to lower- income families (Boone, atr.org, 2015). With the taxes being higher other goods will also cost more, which will hurt many people since they won't be able to buy the things they need for their everyday life. The only ones not being hurt by this are the upper-income people, which only makes up less than 25% of the U.S. population.

I believe the tax should not be raised, as it will hurt the middle and lower-income class. These people would have to pay more for other goods as well as more for their gas. This is not fair as the upper class would be able to pay for it easily. The U.S. also gets income taxes which could easily pay for the roads, parks, and other things the government pays for. These taxes would also lead to less people driving which would bring down the revenue for car companies, and would overall hurt the economy.