Proposed Gas Tax and Small Cars

The column by Donella H. Meadows, “How to Beat a Gasoline Price Hike at the Pumps” (Commentary, Feb. 22), argues that the way to beat the proposed energy tax is to buy a new, more fuel-efficient automobile. She cites gas tax savings of $175 per year by trading in our old cars getting 20 m.p.g. for a new model getting 40 m.p.g., assuming we drive 10,000 miles per year.

Meadows completely ignores the new and higher costs incurred when one purchases a new car. Among these is the sales tax (7.5% where I live) on the new car. This tax would be $892.50 if one were to purchase a VW Jetta, one of the vehicles she cites, using a sale price of $11,900, as was advertised in the same issue of The Times. It would take about five years to make this amount up in gas tax savings using her figures.

The sales tax is but one of the new or higher expenses of a new vehicle, and when the others are figured in I doubt one could ever come out ahead by buying a new vehicle to avoid a higher gas tax. I am sure most consumers know this--it’s too bad an Ivy League professor does not.

MICHAEL R. BRAND Tustin