That’s what Charles Krauthammer calls it in the new Weekly Standard. I think Krauthammer is a perceptive commentator and I read his material carefully, in spite of certain eccentric positions like firearms confiscation. His proposal is interesting: increase the federal gas tax by $1 and offset the tax by a $14 per week reduction in payroll taxes (on the theory that the average American buys 14 gallons of gas per week).
The proposed tax would therefore be revenue-neutral both for the government and the taxpayer, yet it would encourage conservation and a shift to more fuel efficient vehicles, simultaneously reducing our dependence on foreign oil while making CAFE standards unnecessary in the face of market-driven changes.
Color me skeptical, however. Krauthammer doesn’t seem to appreciate that dependence on foreign oil (or at least oil controlled by tyrannical or unstable regimes) is also the fruit of perverse government policy that limits drilling and coal utilization while simultaneously discouraging practical alternatives like nuclear energy. We’re in a pickle of our own making and another government intervention to create ‘market’ incentives is not my cup of tea.
Finally, Krauthammer wants to reduce consumption on the ‘agnostic’ assumption ‘that the endless pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere cannot be a good thing.’ I share no such assumption, agnostic or otherwise. The amount of CO2 that we ’pump’ into the atmosphere is minuscule compared to natural forces.
I have a different proposal in mind. How about drilling, mining and nuclear construction using the very best technologies available? Technology has come a long way since the days of Spindletop and the notion that abundant energy use necessarily fouls our own nest is simply not based in fact.
Of course, if you’re an environmentalist Luddite, then facts simply don’t matter anyway.
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