Gas Taxes: Lesser Evil, Greater Good, NY Times Oct 24 2005

[Coastie for Truth]

There's no serious disagreement that two major crises of our time are terrorism and global warming. And there's no disputing that America's oil consumption fosters both. Oil profits that flow to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries finance both terrorist acts and the spread of dangerously fanatical forms of Islam. The burning of fossil fuels creates greenhouse emissions that provoke climate change. All the while, oil dependency increases the likelihood of further military entanglements, and threatens the economy with inflation, high interest rates and risky foreign indebtedness. Until now, the government has failed to connect our crises and our consumption in a coherent way. That dereliction of duty has led to policies that are counterproductive, such as tax incentives to buy gas guzzlers and an overemphasis on increasing domestic oil supply, although even all-out drilling would not be enough to slake our oil thirst and would require a reversal of longstanding environmental protections.

Now, however, the energy risks so apparent in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have created both the urgency and the political opportunity for the nation's leaders to respond appropriately. The government must capitalize on the end of the era of perpetually cheap gas, and it must do so in a way that makes America less vulnerable to all manner of threats - terrorist, environmental and economic.

The best solution is to increase the federal gasoline tax, in order to keep the price of gas near its post-Katrina highs of $3-plus a gallon. That would put a dent in gas-guzzling behavior, as has already been seen in the dramatic drop in the sale of sport-utility vehicles. And it would help cure oil dependency in the long run, as automakers and other manufacturers responded to consumer demand for fuel-efficient products.

Still, raising the gas tax would be politically difficult - and for very good reasons. The gas tax, which has been at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, is painfully regressive. It hits hardest at poor people for whom fuel costs consume a proportionally larger share of their budgets; rural dwellers for whom truck-driving over long distances is an everyday activity; and the gasoline-dependent middle class, particularly suburban commuters, who, on top of living far from their workplaces, have been encouraged by decades of cheap gas to own large, poor-mileage vehicles.


---edited for brevity---

I have been posting this ---

"There's no serious disagreement that two major crises of our time are terrorism and global warming. And there's no disputing that America's oil consumption fosters both. Oil profits that flow to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries finance both terrorist acts and the spread of dangerously fanatical forms of Islam. The burning of fossil fuels creates greenhouse emissions that provoke climate change. All the while, oil dependency increases the likelihood of further military entanglements, and threatens the economy with inflation, high interest rates and risky foreign indebtedness."

since I first showed up on DU.

Now I see that the New York Times Editorial Board has caught up with this old curmudgeon.

;)

[dcfirefighter]

1. Make it progressive

take the revenue from the gas tax, divide it by 300,000,000; and give a share to each american.

8.0 Billion bbl of oil a year
42 gallons per bbl
$0.25 per gallon (new tax, you choose an amount)
$84 Billion a year
300,000,000 population
$280 per person annual "Energy Credit"
Average family size 2.6
Average per family: $728

With the likely fact that the median household consumes less oil & oil byproducts than the average household, this credit make the whole tax progressive. IOW, the median household will receive the standard $280 per person, however, they'll experience an increase in costs of LESS THAN $280 per person.

It should be noted that 2/3d's of our oil use is for transportation. Expanding, perhaps nationalizing, our rail network would reduce this somewhat. A more fundamental and effective change would require a change in the manner in which we view land as property, or at least a change in the manner in which we tax it. Merely making transportation more expensive will shift spending from transportation to rents and purchases of land near (non-petroleum) transportation nodes. However, if the bulk of our taxes are derived from land values, the owners of those lands will develop them to highest and best use: generally building relatively densely near transportation, reducing housing costs, and leaving agricultural greenbelts around cities & towns to provide a portion of their food consumption at short distances and low transportation costs. As a technical note, such a tax could be in fact be viewed as a "user fee", as the owner must pay it for the service the government provides: recognition and protection of (relatively non-self-evident) property rights.

Furthermore, we should note that the top five transported goods, by ton-mile are:
Coal
Cereal Grains
Other Foods
Petroleum Products
Basic Chemicals
These five product groups comprise 40-45% of our freight, and a similar proportion of our oil for transportation use. Changing our land use patterns (preferably through user fees, as above) would reduce a dependence on shipping some of these goods, as well as reducing the demand for others.