MeatyREADS

Gas Tax

June 7, 2008 – 9:01 am by BH

At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up, and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed. Americans become rational creatures. Mass transit ridership is at a 50-year high. Driving is down 4 percent. (Any U.S. decline is something close to a miracle.) Hybrids and compacts are flying off the lots. SUV sales are in free fall.

That’s Charles Krauthammer. There are clear advantages to the carbon tax versus cap and trade and both are preferable to CAFE standards. But AS is not convinced this is the right course and suggests the proper policy is not to raise prices and conserve but to subsidize oil and mandate that no car gets more than 20 mpg. The goal of course is to run out of oil as quickly as possible and to take away the one source of power the middle east possesses. AS doesn’t write about this, but there’s a certain beauty in his logic, crazy though it might seem at first take. Thoughts?