On a recent Car Talk episode, Ray ranted about the merits of a gas tax increase. I heard the rant on the same day that I read this in a cousin’s annual Christmas letter: “[My dad’s] new 43 mpg highway and 32 city Kia was a contributing factor in the collapse of world oil prices and $4/gal gas.”
Neither of these two (one overt, one implied) perspectives on dealing with the oil conundrum lacks potential, although they suggest greatly different means of unconundruming ourselves.
The gas tax proposal would in essence divert government spending from global oil market manipulation and military intervention to domestic infrastructure projects that would limit our national tendency towards terrorism funding and environmental hypertoxification. It would take a huge effort on the government’s part–perhaps not entirely unlike the New Deal but in a new way.
The same goals of decreased dependence on foreign oil, increased efficiency, and creative innovation are reached by the “buy a more efficient car because it makes financial sense” perspective. This is a less comfortable but more effective (than gas taxation) way to go and requires a huge decrease in governmental intervention. Buying efficient cars and redesigning our oil-addicted lifestyles will happen only when high fuel prices make little cars, car pooling, and tons else desirable–and those high fuel prices are best reached not by added taxation, but by the removal of government bolstering of the oil obtaining process.
If the government would let the oil market do its own thing and not start wars or implement subsidies on its behalf, the Chevy Volt might let GM come back honestly and bailout free–with no extra taxes required.