Couple of points to address your points:
1) I view gov't subsidies and incentives to spur us to get off oil as an investment, which will have very large rewards, both in terms of economic benefits that will outweight the costs, as well as a downpayment on helping us to avert a global ecosystem meltdown.
2) Oil can be a normal cost against which we make a good return, if you think of it as a necessary cost of transportation to get you to work etc. However, the tax portion of oil prices is related to the artificial incremental price we have to pay due to the OPEC cartel being stingy with supply and otherwise trying to manipulate prices. The only way I agree with you that oil is not a tax is the fact that we get nothing in return for the incremental price above fair price we pay to OPEC.
3) As far as gov't intervention to bring alternative fuel vehicles to market faster, I absolutely believe there is a very high payoff for the gov't to invest in the market to do this. If we could reduce oil consumption by 25%, then our economy will be tremendously more resilient and could withstand oil shocks better, which means faster economic growth and high tax revenues. It also means more jobs and it means Americans can keep more of their hard earned money in our economy instead of handing it over to the Saudis. Then when you start to count up the costs of the delitorious affects of smog and air pollution in terms of asthma, cancer, erratic weather patterns, global warming, increased destruction of other natural resources to get at oil, etc, you start to realize that the oil economy is a big monster that has all but played itself out. There is a very big payoff to investing in an oil-free economy. BTW, there were plenty of people that said going to the moon was too expensive and would never pay off to our economy. They were wrong.
4) Then of course, I don't have to argue the political motivations for divorcing our economy from dependence on the commodities supplied by unstable regimes. I probably also don't need to mention the fact that many of our wars and diplomatic confrontations are indirectly tied to securing oil supplies. Eliminate the need for oil and you free Americans from the need to be hostile to secure their addiction. |
