Barack Obama wants to tax oil to invest in infrastructure

Taxing more oil to finance infrastructure. This is one of the proposals contained in the draft 2017 budget presented on Tuesday 9th February by the Obama administration. The idea is for the federal government to take 10 dollars (nine euros) on each barrel of oil produced in the United States. The fruit of this tax, which could amount to $ 32 billion per year (assuming a base production of 9 million barrels per day) would be invested in various projects of bridges, highways, high-trains speed or in research to develop electric vehicles or unmanned vehicles.This trial balloon, however, may remain without a future to the extent that the Republican majority in the Senate without opposition will oppose the measure. "Once again the president hopes that consumers who work hard will pay for a program for the offline climate realities," immediately replied Paul Ryan, chairman of the House of Representatives, already speaking of a project "dead -born ". "Make no mistake, this is a disguised tax on energy consumption levy on oil companies," said for his part the Independent Petroleum Association of America.In fact, this tax would increase the gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline by 25 cents. Barack Obama wants to just take advantage of the current low oil prices (a gallon costs less than $ 2 at the pump) to evolve painlessly taxation which has not changed since 1993 and that is not even indexed to 'inflation. Currently, the federal government levies 0.184 dollar per gallon (0.224 dollar for diesel), which makes US gasoline one of the least taxed in the world.Out of oilThe White House noted that the congestion of the transport system in the United States cost $ 160 billion annually to American families and businesses 30 billion, making traffic jams lose to each other time and wasting fuel when stopped. "The vision of President Obama stressed the inevitability of the transition out of dependence on oil," said Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, an environmental organization. The purpose of raising this tax would be to finance long-term the Highway Trust Fund, a fund for the maintenance of infrastructure, which is regularly short of resources.Since the late 1960s, the share of GDP than the United States dedicated to the maintenance and development of roads has continued to decline to represent, according to the latest OECD figures, 0.5%, or 0.1 points less than France or as much as Sweden, two countries that have yet developed alongside public transport networks much more consistent. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, missing already 846 billion dollars in funding only to upgrade infrastructure.Of the total funds collected through the tax plan, twenty billion would be used to finance urban and interurban transport. Another ten billion would be devoted to regional transport at the state level. Finally, research on "smart and clean" vehicles would be equipped with 2 billion.dead letterThis idea of ​​addressing the infrastructure has indirectly received support in the last few days of Larry Fink, head of the investment fund BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, with more than 4600 billion. "The chronic underinvestment in US infrastructure - from roads to sewers through electrical networks - will not only cost businesses and consumers 1 800 billion over the next five years, but clearly threatens the ability businesses to grow, "he said.To remedy this, the BlackRock boss asks companies to advocate that the government has the means to finance its projects, including developing mechanisms related to the private. But as the Obama proposal, long-term vision of fault, these fine words are likely to remain a dead letter.