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Comment by nospice | Hacker News Reader

That's more or less the system that exists today? You pay a lower rate up to a certain threshold and then a higher rate kicks in.

The problem with PG&E isn't the rate structure, which isn't all that different from utilities anywhere else in the world. It's that their costs are exceedingly high, through a combination of regulatory pressures and grift. This is exacerbated by municipal and state regulators who are pushing consumers to be more reliant on electric power (bans on gas appliances in new construction, pushes toward EVs, etc).

There are vast swathes of the country where people pay 5-10x less for electricity.

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My point was simply that electricity has a “civilization tax” aspect to it, and lower baseline access feels closer to the kind of future-proof system we should be aiming for.

If the floor is gentle, people can actually reduce usage without feeling punished for doing the right thing.

At the moment the baseline tier feels… maybe a “C-rating” version of what a real baseline could be?

So who pays the tax? I mean, California already has some of the highest income taxes, corporate taxes, extra capital gains taxes, sales taxes, etc, etc. If you want to lower the cost of electricity for tens of millions of people without addressing systemic problems that make it ridiculously expensive in the first place, you gotta tax someone.

The effective income tax rate for many SF Bay Area techies is around 50%. Do we jack it up to 65% so that PG&E bills can go down from $400 to $100, like almost everywhere else in the country?

The long version would take us far off-topic, so here’s the short one: if the tax-paying base collapses, none of this matters.

At that point the debate isn’t about pricing — it’s about survival of the system.

I could outline the full methodology behind this view, but that would turn the thread into a private seminar — and that’s not what comment sections are for.

All the majority of people heard from you is “I pay more taxes”

We’ve become an incredibly selfish nation on average, and until these systems collapse and people get to feel the hot stove, they aren’t going to change their minds about keeping any sort of system or infrastructure in place

Where do people pay 3-6 cents for electricity in the US?

which country, UAE? :)

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