[Renegade 13]

Will said:
So what if it ends up costing more for people who live 20km from the nearest place that could be called a town? The cost of living in rural areas are vastly smaller compared to urban and suburban areas, plus you can get a huge house for under $100,000, along with an acre or more of land around it. People choose to live there, and if the negligable costs comprared to cities is too much, they can move a little closer to the city.

Well this all depends on the size of the city you're talking about, but if you're talking a large city then yeah, cost of houses and land is considerably cheaper in rural areas. But take a look at the taxes for in a different light. People who live in rural areas are often farmers and ranchers. Namely, the people who need to fuel their tractors and other farm machinery. Add these taxes on when your fuel bill is already at a couple thousand (at least) per month, and you're going to be killing off a lot of small operations. Simple fix, exempt farms and ranches and the like from these new taxes, as they are already exempted from many taxes.

And really, when you look at taxes, a disproportionate amount comes from urban areas, since that is where the majority of the wealth is created.

I'm actually not sure about more going to rural than urban (though I am sure sub-urban gets more than both!). In Vancouver, billions are being spent on new rapid-transit systems. Billions extra, on top of the usual. All we get is cracks sealed on our highways, sometimes not even that. Can't cost more than a few dozen million per year. Of course, things you mentioned such as military bases etc. are for the benefit of all, not one single group, so it can't be counted in the equation. As are trans-continental highways and the like, since they're necessary for industry to occur in the cities as well, so they can't really be counted as solely rural either.

re: tarrifs on imported goods unless certain policies are in place
I don't see the "stereotypical arrogant American attitude" in implementing tarrifs. It's simple economics. The point of all these little taxes and incentives is to guide the free market to make certain choices over what would otherwise be the most cost-effective choice. Most (or some would say all) rational people would agree that at some point, the developed world needs to stop using fossil fuels. If the US takes this view to heart, and implements these costs on American industry, then foreign products have a cost advantage. The tarrif isn't meant to change policy in other countries, but to offset the penalty that American products would inherently have. If, for example, Canada implemented similar taxes, then there would be no need to balance things out. And it wouldn't throw out NAFTA or any other trade treaty, since treaties supercede Acts of Congress in US law. Canada and Mexico would not be affected by the tarriff, and are free to do as they wish (however, reforms like this would be more likely to happen in Canada first, and right now the Mexican government is so weak, if the US does it, they probably could be coerced into doing the same soon after). Any country without a trade treaty that explicitly forbids tarrifs based on the country's policies would be subject to the tarrif.

That's the thing, in a capitalist society the economy isn't supposed to be "guided" by the government. It's not capitalism then, it's closer to socialism. And yes, I think it is an arrogant attitude to think that the American idea is the best idea there is or can be! Tariffs for not doing as the States thinks is best is arrogant, since it's automatically dismissing the idea that other countries have the right to do as they wish with their own economic policy. If the States decides to implement such an idea, go for it, but don't try to force the rest of the world into doing what ONE country thinks is a wise measure. Of course, I'm sure I'll be disagreed with on this particular point.