Let’s Create Some Political Will For The Best Idea Out There
Ever since we went to war in Iraq, I’ve been saying that the single best and most moral thing we could do to make things better in this country and around the world is to institute a dollar-a-gallon gasoline tax. Now, having lived through gas grices far higher than such a tax would push them now, the idea makes more sense than ever before: Reduced consumption of the foreign oil that has driven our foreign policy crazy, clear incentives for making and buying higher milage cars, less greenhouse gases, stimulation of more sustainable local economies, and revenues to pay down the cost of the wars (and the bailouts) themselves.
Now my intellectual hero, Thomas Friedman, is trying to get the rest of us to put pressure on the Obama administration to make this move while he has the economic crisis and the meltdown of Detroit to rationalize it for folks who can’t see the bigger picture.
Read his column (click here), think for fifteen seconds, and start spreading the word to your friends and relatives: Here is a sacrifice we can all make that will really make a difference…let’s make it happen!
That’s… odd.
Gasoline taxes are inherently regressive. They hurt the poor far more than they hurt the rich. If you drive a $25,000 car, then what you pay at the pump is a small part of the interest, maintenance, and insurance that you pay total. So you don’t really notice an increase in gas prices in your bottom line.
If you drive a $2,500 car, though, all of those prices are much lower. So a gas hike is a really big deal in your month-to-month budget. Plus, increased fuel prices mean big problems in terms of consumer goods (especially food) getting more expensive.
Doing it at a time when the economy is great might (MIGHT) be worth discussing, but right now? You’re putting people in the poorhouse and accomplishing absolutely nothing. Increasing fuel costs does nothing for global warming (since the environment, not being a person, doesn’t notice symbolic gestures that don’t make an actual quantitative difference) and makes local economies LESS sustainable (unless you buy into the theory that poverty is sustainable).
This is a very bad idea.
Comment by Micah — December 30, 2008 @ 8:41 am
Bart, I have to agree with Micah on this. I follow Friedman’s logic, until I put it in the context of my own family. Then it goes something like this: My 24 year old daughter who makes $7.50 an hour is able to drive the 2.4 miles to work without my help because gas prices have fallen. If the suggested gas tax is added, either I start filling her tank again (oh great) or she walks to
work (not likely) or she looks for another job (there aren’t any). Multiply her situation by the increasing number of out-of-work or underemployed folks without parents to fall back on, and their crisis just worsens. A $1.00 a gallon tax would make me more likely to swear at the pump, but it wouldn’t really hurt. At least not enough for me to object if I could see the benefits without the damage it would do to people who are already staring over that precipice.
Comment by Mollie — December 30, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
I concede that Micah and Mollie have good points here. And so I think the question is not whether or not to do something along the lines of what Friedman proposes, but how exactly to implement such a strategy. Much as it would be more convenient to tax gas during a good economy, it would be political suicide. Offsetting a gas tax with other tax cuts and/or credits for families most effected by such a tax (which Friedman hints at) seems like a decent start. If, as Micah rightly points out, the rich are marginally affected, then rolling back the Bush tax cuts while adding tax credits for the poor could really help. If working families are paying out more in gas, but getting more back in EITC and other credits, so that their annual bottom line hasn’t changed, that re-applies the pressure on the market to race for a alt-energy cars. Our country makes decisions based on their pocketbooks; that’s where our political will is. I agree that Friedman’s solution is imperfect, but his identification of the problem is right on. Our national security and the global economy depend on diversifying our energy solutions so that petro-dictators no longer have power.
Comment by Ryan — January 2, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
I could not agree more with this idea and believe that once again Thomas Friedman (my intellectual hero too) and Bart have got it right. Look at what happened when gas prices rose…people started using public transportation and demanding more of it, they bought fewer gas guzzling cars and thought again about when to use the car for unnecessary trips. All this changed when gas prices fell again…what short memories we have! This would be a good and steady source of revenue. I lived in the UK where gas prices are taxed, high and stable…a good idea. But only if a real commitment is made to public transportation.
Comment by Fiona Allison — January 7, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
“Now my intellectual hero, Thomas Friedman, is trying to get the rest of us to put pressure on the Obama administration to make this move while he has the economic crisis and the meltdown of Detroit to rationalize it for folks who can’t see the bigger picture.”
The intellectual “genius” of advancing a foreign policy by raising taxes on what is a critical consumer and producer good during a recession/economic crisis is barely debatable; it will push US and other economies further into distress and heightening the cycles of government ownership stakes in private corporations.
Comment by Nathan Smithson — January 8, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
Now?
It makes sense in intention, but it just doesn’t make sense to do it now. Let’s let our economy get more stablilized, allow money to buy gasoline at affordable prices to they can get to work to pay for overinflated prices of groceries and other neccesitites.
Good in theory? Probably. Good right now? Mmmm, don’t think so.
Comment by Joyce — January 14, 2009 @ 8:54 pm