Raise Gasoline Taxes> 5 Big Ideas

How do you feel when you see an SUV with one of those silly yellow magnetic “support out troops” ribbons? Do you think they understand the irony and are doing it to spite people like me? Or are they just too ignorantly hypocritical to get that our troops wouldn’t be in Iraq if we weren’t so dependent on the Middle East’s oil? Every time we fill up our gas tanks with petrol we are bankrolling the most repressive, dangerous governments in the world. We are doing irreversible damage to our environment. We are making more terrorists.

I think we should raise the tax on gasoline to European levels. In the US taxes make up roughly 30% of the price of gasoline. In the UK taxes make up roughly 76% of the price of gasoline. Sure, the price of gasoline would initially double in the states if we taxed it more heavily, but that rise in price would cause a fall in demand, which in turn would lower the price per barrel of crude, making the rise in price more bearable. This would mean a lot more of the money we pay for gas would go to our government instead of the Saudi’s, Venezuelans and Russians. With less oil revenues those countries would have to undergo much needed economic and political reform which won’t happen when they are flush with oil revenues and can ignore change. It is the lack political and economic reform that breeds terrorists. The money our government gets from those taxes could go to alternative energy research so we could kick our deadly habit and in a fundamental way make the world a better place.

For years Brazil has been benefiting from using biofuels they derive from sugar cane. This makes them less reliant on foreign fuel. Also, it is much better for the environment. Additionally it gives more work to their farmers. We could do the same for our farmers in the US and in that way save lots of money on those damned subsidies that not only are a waste of our tax dollars but also lowers worldwide agricultural prices. As a result farmers in developing nations suffer and then we end up having to give out more foreign aid, which also comes from our tax dollars.

America has a responsibility to the planet and the planet’s future people to be a role model in energy production and consumption. This is not going to be easy to sell to the American public, but it is probably the single most important action our government could take to fight terrorism, reduce the damage we are doing to the environmental and make the rest of the world hate us just a bit less. If our government wasn’t swimming in money from the oil companies maybe they would raise the tax on gasoline. Sadly they benefit from the status quo and we are paying for our cheap gasoline in countless ways.