2023-11-15 16:44:53
Unintentional car enthusiasts know better than anyone that the price of gasoline weighs on the budget and on morale. The most flammable economist in France resets the counters.
The price at the pump is probably the most reliable thermometer of social revolt. However, until the Yellow Vest movement, this subject hardly interested our political leaders, nor even our intellectual elites, for whom increases in fuel prices are barely perceptible (the more you earn, the less you feel the few euros in more on a full tank) and who mostly live in Paris (where the car is useless, because there is public transport, cycle paths, VTC and taxis). This is why many economists and politicians claiming to be left-wing have defended an increase in fuel prices as an instrument of ecological transition. “What if we let fuel prices rise? » asked an econoclastic economist in an article for Libération, then arguing that high fuel prices constitute the best incentive to reduce consumption.
UNDER-GREAT
However, in real life, where transport infrastructure is non-existent, fuel consumption is a constrained expense. If you only have your car to get to work, how are you going to reduce your gas consumption? By turning off the engine on a descent? By driving at low revs? It is clear that, as no one can reduce the mileage of a trip with the wave of a magic wand, the rise in gasoline prices is, for all those who have no other alternative than to take their car, a constrained expense for which they have no, or very little, room for maneuver. In this context, any increase in gasoline does not lead to a drop in consumption as our favorite economists argue, but adds to other consumption budgets such as food. We had to wait until November 15, 2018, when tens of thousands of people wearing yellow vests gathered on roundabouts, for some to understand that the difficult ends of the month of a large part of the French are suspended on the volatility of fuel prices.
But nothing has changed since then. Politicians ask distributors to lower prices, distributors ask politicians to lower taxes. Politicians monitor prices like watching milk on the stove, hoping that they do not exceed the psychological threshold of two euros for too long. It is difficult to understand, in this context, why no one has looked into fuel taxation, which is fundamentally unfair and represents between 50% and 60% of the price. It is important to understand that today, regardless of the residential area (city center, suburbs, rural), the type of use of the vehicle (regular home-work trips or leisure), the motorization of the vehicle or the situation of the driver (possibility of using public transport or not), the tax on a liter of gasoline is the same for everyone. The latter therefore weighs more on low-income households than on well-off households. In Paris, the rate of car use for commuting is 13% compared to 75 to 85% in the majority of France. This gap cannot be explained by the greater inclination of certain provincials to take the car, it is simply explained by the fact that they simply do not have a transport option that can replace their car. It is time to rethink this tax system to make it fairer. We manage to invent very complicated tax arrangements to allow large groups to lower their taxes (like consolidated global profits), why don’t we spend the same ingenuity and energy to preserve purchasing power? If only to open up a reflection on the subject by creating a Commission as we are so often used to in our country. I am also taking advantage of the writing of this article to tell the Government that I am available to lead this Commission…
By Thomas Porcher
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