Word: import
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Proposals fall into two main categories: boosting the federal excise tax on retail gasoline sales, now at 4? per gal., and enacting an import surcharge on foreign oil. Increasing retail gasoline prices would surely help to hold down consumption of automotive fuel, but since gasoline is an important component in the Consumer Price Index, the tax would also translate directly into more inflation. Worse, the levy would do little to boost production of domestic crude oil and have no effect at all on discouraging foreign imports...
...import surcharge, by contrast, would encourage domestic production by using imported oil as a kind of lever to set a higher price for all petroleum in the U.S. market. Moreover, foreign suppliers would get no benefit from the higher prices since the resulting revenues would flow to the U.S. Treasury...
First to broach the surcharge idea was David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, who last December proposed a $2-per-bbl. import surcharge. Though the President rejected the idea, such a tax would add about 5? per gal. to the retail price of gasoline, which has fallen by as much as 200 in some places anyway...
...only is Stockman's import-surcharge idea being dusted off, but Administration officials are beginning to think seriously of a substantially larger surcharge of anywhere from $5 to $10 per bbl. Such a levy would raise from $18 billon to $36 billion annually, offsetting nearly 38% of the Administration's projected $96.4 billion budget deficit for next year. By cutting taxes for hard-pressed U.S. taxpayers, the President has created a budget dilemma that he can now help solve in effect by taxing foreign-oil suppliers instead...
...Bruce Christensen, president of the National Association of Public Television Stations, is worried about the network's toughing out even the first cut. "No industry can lose 25% of its funds and continue to operate at the same level," he says. This means fewer funds to produce or import expensive programs like Brideshead Revisited, Life on Earth and the National Geographic special The Sharks-shows that have brought PBS fresh prestige, ec static reviews and record-breaking ratings. The pool of shows that will attract audiences (and potential subscribers) looks to be drying up just when...