Clark County Conservative

Sorry Ed, You’re Just Not That Important

5 Comments to “Sorry Ed, You’re Just Not That Important”

1. 
   Carolyn Crain
   December 4, 2013 at 9:44 PM

   He is fighting to stay up front.
2. 
   lewwaters
   December 4, 2013 at 9:54 PM

   He’s got Lefty Lou and Pollard promoting him and I can only guess the smiles and smirks he receives from Stuart, all the while not realizing just how irrelevant he actually is.
3. 
   jack
   December 4, 2013 at 11:43 PM

   sounds like a total moron
4. 
   Friend of John Galt
   December 5, 2013 at 11:11 AM

   Ed Barnes has uttered one of the most stupid remarks from a political figure that was not an outright insult. Lets look at a few realities:

   1. Fuel prices are set by a competitive market with some forcing due to costs of the retail vender for the purchase of inventory and cost of overhead (which ultimately includes the cost of taxes paid by the vender’s owner). Oregon has a fairly stiff income tax, Washington does not.

   2. The proposed 11.5 cent (per gallon, I presume) tax increase is a pretty stiff increase (especially if the Feds increase their per gallon excise tax by the 15 cents per gallon that was recently proposed). However, the 11.5 cents is still within the variation of fuel prices observed in the market when comparing SW Washington prices with Portland metro prices.

   Today, the current per gallon price of regular gas is $3.288 per gallon WA state wide average (average in Vancouver was not available from GasBuddy.com). The range in the Vancouver area was $3.09 to $3.49 per gallon. An increase of 11.5 cents per gallon for the state tax might or might not result in a full increase — that is, for competitive reasons, the lower cost stations may ‘eat’ some of that cost. (Generally, the best prices are available at Safeway and Costco stations.)

   The current average cost per gallon of regular gas in Portland, OR is $3.259 per gallon and the range of prices runs from a low of $3.04 to a high of $3.72 per gallon.

   Based on the average prices, Portland is .029 (less than 3 cents) cheaper per gallon. At the extremes, Portland’s cheapest vs. the cheapest Vancouver area station is about 5 cents per gallon in favor of Portland. At the high end, Vancouver’s highest is $3.49 vs $3.79 in Portland a 30 cent savings per gallon when buying the most expensive fuel in Vancouver.

   Now, what about buying gas in Portland? If you do not regularly travel to Portland, then it would require a special trip. Then you would need to know where the less expensive stations are located (because you might end up paying substantially more than buying locally). Regular commuters, presumably, are already buying fuel at the least expensive vendor that is within a reasonable distance from their normal route — so there is unlikely to be a significant change in habits unless the tax raises Washington prices sufficiently to cause a change in behavior.

   As for the non-commuter, it is hard to justify traveling very far for fuel. The lower priced stations near me are within 3 miles. Likewise, most residents of the area have probably found satisfactory stations near their homes. (I note that the most expensive stations are either name brand (Chevron, Shell, 76) or located near a freeway on/off ramp (which are often name brand stations). The cheaper stations (Safeway, USA and others) are usually located in/near shopping centers. Therefore, most drivers are likely to buy gasoline whilst making a ‘necessary’ trip for some other purpose. (Generally, I refuel when going to the grocery or hardware store or for other errands (i work at home).) Therefore, lets say that the excess miles for a round trip to Portland would add about 20 miles round trip. At the average price of fuel in Portland ($3.26/gal), my (rather efficient) car would use about 2/3 of a gallon of gas at a cost of about $2.15. Assuming that all of the tax is passed on to the customer, that means the premium for Vancouver fuel would be 14.5 cents per gallon (3 cents plus 11.5 cents). That suggests that I’d need to purchase nearly 15 gallons JUST TO BREAK EVEN. Since my compact auto has a 13 gallon tank — and I rarely need to buy more than 10 or so gallons on a fill-up, I’d lose money on every trip to buy gas outside of SW Washington. Indeed, it would probably be much worse since I tend to pay well below the average price for fuel locally.

   Note that this would be considerably worse, economically, for a vehicle that gets, say, 20 mpg — then the cost of fuel would run $3.26 for the round trip … and to break even, a fill-up of roughly 22.5 gallons would be required, based on average fuel cost.

   However, I will say that Ed Barnes has demonstrated the abysmal understanding of economics that is common among politicians of the left.
5. 
   Jacob
   December 5, 2013 at 5:57 PM

   I guess Ed forgot those who take the bus to/from school. Should I not ride C-tran because we don’t know where they purchase their fuel and should Ed Barnes protest C-tran? After all, they are for the choo-choo.

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