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Show IS (.AS TAX "PAINLKSS?" A set of tires costing one hundred -ml fil'ty riullar; i:.::y run for ten -housan.l niiles on avoTage roads. Tiie sail;:; s-t will run double the mileage on imnrovr-i highways. The :.ver;.ge car travels ten thousand miles per year. Therefore, the average aver-age tire cost, supposing average size and quality of tires are purchased, is ?150 per year on dirt roads and ?75 on fine roads. Ten thousand miles of running, at an average of 15 miles to the gallon, requires Ui',62-3 gallons of gas. If gas is taxed 2 cents a gallon, the average aver-age runner of ten thousand miles pays $13.33 per year in gas tax. In a state where there are 100.000 au-lomobiles au-lomobiles (which is less than the average. California, for instance, has about a million), the net income I'rora the gas tax, above outlined1, would be $1,333,000.00. At twenty-five thousand dollars a mile, that sum will build fifty-three miles of improved highways. If there are a million cars, five hundred and thirty miles of improved highways could be built a year from the tax. If the gas tax was 4 cents. 106 or 1.060 miles a year, respectively, could be built. "Where the roads are unimproved, 'he 100.000 car owners spend $7,-r.OO.OOO $7,-r.OO.OOO a year on tires, which they otherwise would save. The million car owners would spend $75,000,000 i;n tirps they otherwise would save. Proponents of the argument say that a tax on gasoline, snent on the roads is thp one and only "painless tax." a |