Fill 'er up
February 10With a new administration settling in and support for the executive branch at levels not seen in decades, there may be no better time to really shake things up. President Barack Obama has already done a fairly efficient job of this by ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay and by addressing climate problems. But given the global economy's dire straits, is there anything he can really do until we climb out of this recession? As luck would have it, there is something he can do, something that could only be facilitated by this economic shakeup. This course of action would require mass spending of political capital and a lot of public support. But most of all, it would require the will to go out on a political limb. It would be a lot like stepping near a political third rail, and it would require President Obama to break one of his campaign promises: He'd have to raise taxes, but not income taxes. What is this idea? Two words: gas tax. Don't everybody jump at once. I understand any new taxes are hard to swallow. I understand nobody wants to pay the government any more than they have to, and yes, I know we're already paying a federal gas tax, along with state and local gas taxes. But given the current economic climate, there's no better time to raise the national gas tax. A lot of opposition to a gas tax is based (at least in recent times) around people not wanting to pay any higher than the absurd price they already have to pay to fill up. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the current national average for a gallon of gas is about $1.93 as of Feb. 9; that's certainly a lot lower than it's been in recent memory. With global economies in turmoil, the market on almost everything has fallen. While that's pretty much bad news for just about everything else, the price of gas is now low enough to feasibly consider implementing a national gas tax in addition to the individual state rates. Let's say it starts at about an additional 10 or 15 cents a gallon — not that much more tacked onto your daily fill-up. Is that so unreasonable? Of course, not everybody will be on board. And by that I mean pretty much everybody would be against this proposal in the beginning. Nobody ever wants to pay more than they have to, even if the gas is relatively cheap and the tax hike isn't that much in addition to what you'll pay every time you fill up. It's still more than you would have paid without it. But for a second, let's just imagine that the gas tax is passed at an additional 10 cents on the gallon. Suppose all the cars and trucks on the road in this country take 10 gallons of gas when they fill up, just for the sake of mathematical simplicity. That means that the U.S. government collects an extra dollar when somebody fills up. That may only seem like enough to get you a cheeseburger at McDonald's, but it's all about scale here. In 2006, there were approximately 244,166,000 registered vehicles in America according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's a whole lot of cheeseburgers. To review, if we raise the average price of gas to about $2 with a 10-cent national gas tax, and for the sake of simplicity we assume that a typical fill-up in the United States is 10 gallons, that means that the government is making a dollar on every fill-up. Multiply that by the number of registered vehicles and the U.S. government just made over 244 million dollars. That's 244 million dollars every time America fills up. And then 244 million the next time they fill up, and so on and so on. Obviously every single car and truck in the United States isn't going to fill up at the same time; some vehicles might not get gas at all. But the bulk of that money is going to be made. And what exactly can the government do with all that money? It can start by fixing the American infrastructure; our bridges, tunnels and roads are in a sad state of disrepair. It's not only an annoyance to motorists, but it can become dangerous as evidenced by the Minnesota bridge collapse in August 2007. By investing in the infrastructure of this country you kill two birds with one stone: you fix what needs fixing and you provide jobs for American workers. People who have been laid off with the economic crisis can be hired to pave roads or weld bridges. It's work that people need and work that they can do. The problem is it'll be next to impossible to find politicians to back the proposal because raising taxes is a lot like political kryptonite. Obama promised he would cut taxes for "95 percent of workers and their families" during his campaign. Instituting a gas tax could theoretically be seen as raising taxes for 100 percent of Americans (or at least construed that way by administration critics). Opponents of the increase will be many and outspoken. Their argument will of course be that raising taxes during this recession is tantamount to playing with fire near a barrel of (sorry about this) gasoline: dangerous, irresponsible and stupid. A good deal of public response may well be similar. However, if President Obama truly wants to show he stands for change and bold new action, he should at least consider raising the gas tax. It may be highly unpopular, but why not take a shot at it? Our new president will need to work pretty hard to wrangle congressional and public support. But he's got political capital to spend and economic conditions are ripe for this sort of change — it's pretty much the only thing they're ripe for besides foreclosures and layoffs. The money generated from this increase could be immensely useful even at the relatively low 10-cent-per-gallon rate. Imagine what the government could do with it if the tax were 15 or even 20 cents on the gallon. America needs revenue, jobs and domestic investment. A nationwide gas tax could provide all of that. Think about it.
