A gasoline tax
Thomas Friedman is making a lot of sense. But he writes that after 9/11, "some of us pleaded for a “patriot tax” on gasoline of $1 or more a gallon to diminish the transfers of wealth we were making to the very countries who were indirectly financing the ideologies of intolerance that were killing Americans and in order to spur innovation in energy efficiency by U.S. manufacturers."
Of course by "some of us" he means "Thomas Friedman", and he was on to something. The unfortunate fact, however, is that consumption remains extremely high, and auto companies continue to fight efficiency standards even as gasoline has increased in price by more than a dollar a gallon since 9/11. It would obviously have been preferable for that price increase to have come in the form of a tax and for the market to have evolved from there--but if the intent of the tax had been to decrease consumption and diminish asset transfers to Middle Eastern countries, it probably wouldn't have succeeded at only one dollar a gallon.
Comments
You're assuming that the increase in gasoline prices has had no effect. I think it's not true: Hummer sales have gone in the toilet. I see them, and recent Escalades, etc., languishing in the car lots I pass on my way to work. There's a perceptible shift in what people are buying, and it's toward smaller cars. The really big thing which is happening, though, is increased consumption by the BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India, China. Nothing we do is going to have an effect there.
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