October 23, 2000

Gore to go by Greyhound

IT'S NOT JUST WAR

One of the constant themes of my columns has been that the internationalising tendency has not just led us into needless wars or sovereignty limiting trade agreements, but that foreign affairs are now becoming domestic. In Britain imperial measurements like inches, pounds and gallons are now illegal. Why? The European Union told us to make them illegal. Before you ask, parliament has yet to vote on the laws that are already in effect. British farmers are limited to producing 85% of British milk consumption so that French dairy farmers can have a market. In Ireland, an inflationary boom has been met with a very low interest rate because the German economy is weak and the Irish now share a currency with those Germans. To paraphrase the feminists, the international is domestic.

AND AMERICA TOO

This doesn't just apply to Europe, but to America as well. In addition, it could seriously affect your standard of living. For the European Union want to increase the taxes that Americans pay for their aircraft fuel. The first question is how can the Europeans do this? Well there is an agreement, the 1944 Chicago Convention, which prohibits us from taxing international aviation fuel. If the government so strongly wishes to tax aviation fuel then surely they can negotiate their way out of the convention and then impose it unilaterally. That is not what they want to do, however. They want all the countries of the world to tax it together, and tax it at an enormous rate.

JET SETTERS

The admission that this is a serious plan by the British government came up in the British House of Lords. The government spokesman said that they would put tax on aircraft fuel, but only after the Americans had agreed to do the same. Here is what he said:

As a point of fact, we are bound by the 1944 Chicago Convention and subsequent protocols that forbid us from taxing aviation fuel. That is the basis on which we have to work until we have persuaded countries internationally to tax aviation fuel.

That's right, in the rather convoluted prose of Lord McIntosh of Haringey they want to "have persuaded countries internationally to tax aviation fuel" rather than impose the tax internationally. That's America. THAT'S YOU.

WHOSE PLATFORM SAYS THIS?

Just a second, in the middle of an election year don't you think that this would be mentioned? After all the man who makes treaties is the President of the United States. And he could be making taxes, which would be massively unpopular. If you think that the tax on aviation fuel will be a modest one or two percent, think again. In answer to another question on smaller planes, the sort of tax that they are thinking of becomes clear:

any change to relative taxation of av gas, which the noble Lord uses, and the kerosene that jet engines use would be towards higher taxation for jet engine fuel rather than lower taxation for petrol engine aircraft.

That's right, the move will be towards the British rate of petrol tax (although I doubt that it will quite get there). How high is that exactly? Well seventy three percent when I last looked. Think about it. Three hundred percent if you look at it from a pre rather than post tax perspective. That means that the price of fuel would be quadrupled. So every dollar paid for aircraft fuel will then have to be four. Now, as I said, I see little prospect of aircraft fuel tax getting quite that high, but the ceiling isn't exactly low. So what are the candidates positions on this?

SEVENTEEN SEVENTY WHEN?

Now this is a serious policy. The British Government have admitted that they are pursuing an international campaign to tax fuel. This is what Lord McIntosh, a government minister, said on Thursday:

The Government support on environmental grounds the removal of the international ban on the taxation of aviation fuel. We shall continue to pursue the issue in the forum of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Now to some extent that's fine. In a democracy, it should be the governments that decide their own taxation limits. That is not the intention. In the next sentence he says:

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has made it clear that the Government have no plans to take advantage of the European Commission's proposal to allow member states to opt to tax aviation fuel used on domestic flights and on flights within the EU.

So they will not tax although they want to. What's up with that? Well the answer is tax competition. That healthy state of competition that means that the economies that let their people keep the most money will grow the fastest. It has a wonderfully bracing effect and naturally, the governments that are so keen on competition policy want to form into a cartel on taxes. Here is what McIntosh said:

However, an independent study commissioned by the European Union confirms that taxing aviation fuel only in the EU would have very little environmental effect and would discriminate against British and European carriers.

Rewind and compress, "an independent study ... confirms that taxing aviation fuel only in the EU ... would discriminate against ... European carriers." This leads to two conclusions, firstly Lord McIntosh is not a wordsmith and secondly that they want to tax you. If you are in any doubt here is what he says near the end:

I hope that I have made it clear that there are significant disadvantages in Britain or the European Union going it alone.

This is the situation. Britain (and presumably the EU) wants to impose taxes on aviation fuel. They do not want to impose taxes in Europe alone. This can logically mean only one thing, that they want to impose taxes internationally. Internationally means America. Although it is not stated in this exchange, the British government has said that they want this agreed in the autumn of 2001, well within the next four years. Therefor under the next presidency, they will want to increase significantly the price of airline tickets through this tax. So, who knows about it?

DISLOCATION

Who will really suffer? Obviously, it will be the flights where fuel is a large part of the budget. As the amount of fuel is fairly constant then it will be those flights that don't have much in the way of stewardess service or free drinks. Low margin flights. Which flights have the lowest margins? Internal flights. Which country has the most people flying internally? The United States. You will see the poor, and to use Al Gore's phrase "working families", being taxed on to Greyhounds. This tax will also tax those businesses that have to move executives around the country quickly, a tax on business and economic efficiency. Surely a tax like this would be roundly condemned or stoutly defended. So what are the candidates saying?

NOT A DICKIE BIRD

Well a search of the web sites reveals more than intended. Using the simple search "aviation fuel tax" the Bush site comes with the message, "Your search returned no results." Not surprising really, but then the Bush campaign are not always the best at finding a winning issue. I then went to Gore's website. The search (when choosing all rather than any terms) came up with the equally illuminating "Sorry, no matches were found containing aviation fuel tax." So why the mute button? Is this a new idea? Well, no it has been on the table from the UK at least since 1999, and its been touted by the OECD since 1997. Is it going to have a small impact? Quadrupling fuel prices, doubling the price of some budget flights, what do you think?

GORE WILL FIGHT (FOR) YOU

Of course, you can rely on fighting Al. His book "Earth in the Balance" came up with such classics as the plan to eliminate the motor car in 25 years time (so he has another 17 to go). Is this a man to stand up for the small company sending a negotiating team to a big customer, the working families on holiday, the job seekers? Not Al it seems. This new tax could have a massive effect on the American way of life and it will be done by treaty. At the very least, the presidential candidates could let you know where they stand on this.

Text-only printable version of this article

Contact
Emmanuel Goldstein

Go to the most current column by Emmanuel Goldstein

Sign up to receive Airstrip One by e-mail

Archived Columns

Gore to go by Greyhound
10/23/00

Israel, the Middle East and Legacies of Empire
10/16/00

And They Still Go Thundering On
10/09/00

What Happens if Blair Loses?
9/25/00

Petrol Pump Politics
9/18/00

Is England Still Free?: II. The Celtic Dominion
9/11/00

Stumble in the Jungle
9/4/00

Is England Still Free?: Parliament Loses Its Place
8/28/00

Just What Were They Doing in Montenegro?
8/21/00

Free Jersey
8/14/00

The Wrongs of Human Rights
8/7/00

Left and Right: What Divides Us?
7/31/00

The Patriot Sucked
7/24/00

An Open Letter to Mel Gibson
7/17/00

An Internationalist Catechism
7/10/00

Where's the Blood Bath?
7/3/00

The World Bank's Resource Grab
6/26/00

Mr. Blair's Rough Diamonds
6/19/00

Kosovo Was Illegal. So What?
6/13/00

Ireland Heats Up
6/6/00

The Dilemma of the Horn
5/30/00

The African Problem, and Us
5/23/00

Sierra Leone Ain't My Burden
5/16/00

Immigration and Intervention are not the Same Thing
5/9/00

Zimbabwe: The coming Invasion
5/2/00

In Zimbabwe All Rhodes Lead to London
4/25/00

The Empire Struck Back
4/18/00

The Long Island Terrorist
4/11/00

Margaret Thatcher and the Art of Being Wrong
4/4/00

NATO is past its sell by date
3/29/00

How They Oppress Us
3/21/00

Britain's Death Wish
3/15/00

Prosecute Blair: It's time to indict
3/8/00

The Echelon Project and the New McCarthyism
3/1/00

Will Britain ever leave the EU?
2/23/00

Vote for the Rich Jerk, It's Important
2/16/00

Anschluss II: How Reconstruction in Austria Will be Done
2/9/00

Coming Home to Roost
2/2/00

You can keep your legacy, Mr. Clinton
1/26/00

Were we wrong about the draft?
1/19/00

The Coming
Euro-Crash
1/12/00

The (ever so slow) Awakening of the British Right
1/5/00

What is Blair Really Like?
12/22/99

The Belgian Empire. The Balkan Stability Pact and the European Army
12/15/99

James Bond and Big Oil. Here we go again
12/8/99

Because we do: A plea for Reaction
12/1/99

The Last Noble Cause: Euroscepticism and the Battle for Britain
11/24/99

Tony Blair: The Future's Blight
11/17/99

Why the Second World War will always be popular in Britain
11/10/99

A Peace of Paper
11/3/99

The Old Fight of New Labour
10/21/99

Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym of a political drifter on the fringes of English classical liberal and Euro-sceptic activity. He is a former member of the Labour Party, who knows Blair and some of his closest buddies better than they realise, yet. He has a challenging job in the real world, working for a profit-making private company and not sponging off the taxpayer in politics, journalism or the civil service. "Airstrip One," appears Mondays at Antiwar.com.