A NY State gasoline reliefbate

The Center for American Progress has a proposal for helping households on the gas price increase. It calls it a "reliefbate", giving households a rebate check ranging from $453 for low-income houses to decreasing amounts at higher income levels.See below:
A Fuel Price “Reliefbate”Middle- and lower-income families need immediate help to cope with record fuel prices. We can help these families by providing a “fuel price reliefbate” check of up to $450, which will cover some or all of the higher fuel price costs faced by working families due to the increase in gas prices over the last seven years.
The fuel price reliefbate would be applied progressively to families who need it the most. The amount households in each income group would receive in offsets is calculated using the average annual fuel expenditure increase between 2001 and an estimate for 2008 (see methodology for more details). The fuel price reliefbate would reimburse 100 percent of the higher cost of gasoline since 2001—or $450—for families earning less than $10,000 per year. Families with higher incomes would receive a progressively smaller offset. Families earning $50,000 to $75,000 annually would receive $200 or one-fifth of the total annual average increase for gasoline between 2001 and 2008. And families earning more than $75,000 annually would receive no aid. Overall, this portion of the fuel price reliefbate would provide some reprieve to 80 percent of all households and cost $22 billion.
This proposal would also provide independent truckers with a $4,000 fuel price reliefbate, which would offset, albeit slightly, the exorbitant rise in diesel prices. This portion of the fuel price reliefbate would cost $1.2 billion. There are over 306,000 self-employed truck drivers who spend on average over $110,000 annually on fuel, driving an average of 130,000 plus miles per year. Each independent truck driver would get $4000, which is five percent of the difference between the annual 2001 fuel expenditure and an estimate of his/her fuel bill in 2008.
This short-term relief proposal should be followed by meaningful, long-term solutions.
Closing Tax Loopholes and Recovering Lost RoyaltiesThis fuel price reliefbate may sound like a lot of money, but it could easily be paid for by closing several oil tax loopholes and recovering lost royalties. The bipartisan “Energy Advancement and Investment Act of 2007” had several provisions to close tax loopholes and recover
Posted by gecannon on June 28, 2008 2:06 PM
In my post yesterday, I described the Center for American Progress's "reliefbate"-a progressive check to holdholds to help pay for increased gas prices.
Let's do this at the state level. Gov. Paterson should cost this out and announce the program in July. It would cost less than a $1 billion, but the monies can be found.
Paterson should announce this as an executive order, using already budgeted monies. He should ignore the dysfunctional legislature. They have already gone home anyhow.
Posted by gecannon on June 29, 2008 12:09 PM