JF, the easiest way to get Americans weened off of oil is to raise gas taxes. Make Americans pay as much as Europeans do, if not more. Use the gas tax revenue to fund alternative energy research.
NO! That's shooting for pie in the sky solutions, allowing the government to fund "their favorite solution" (think corn ethanol), and isn't addressing the most effective and immediate solutions.
If you tax the energy client, the inefficient car or the refrigerator or whatever, then the marketplace will decide the best solution, not the government. The goal is to double+ oil efficiency; if that's hybrids or all electric or natural gas or some super efficient internal combustion engine or whatever who cares?
And if people want to drive Escalades then let them, but tax the crap out of them and use the funds to incent others to buy very, very efficient vehicles. Those inefficient vehicles are costing us all money at the pump, they are leading us into wars we shouldn't have to fight, they are responsible for 50% of our trade deficit, and they are taking $Billions out of our economy every month... and transferring our wealth overseas. You want the "freedom" to drive an SUV, fine, but you have to pay the carrying cost that the rest of us no are carrying for you.
To me this is the MOST IMPORTANT issue that the country faces today, right now. And if peak oil is really behind us, then it may be a sink or swim issue. |
