Medication for an SUV Nation

Americans have resigned themselves to an inexorable fate. With a sigh and a shrug, they pull the gas pump off its handle, swipe their credit card, and cringe as the price meter climbs so fast that the dollar digit seems stuck at eight. Frustrated at their bills, they might rant to their friends, or perhaps even call their congressman.

But embroiled in a rancorous race to midterm elections, congressmen and senators seem more concerned with pandering to the vagaries of focus groups and opinion polls than devising a genuine solution to our oil addiction. They seek to find the proverbial silver bullet, unwilling to face the hard truth that our gasoline problem is not amenable to simplistic panaceas. But so far, Congress’s fixes have been impotent at best, its lobby-driven debate pusillanimous at worst. Americans deserve better.

The truth is that we must begin to make some tough decisions and painful sacrifices. Policies must be enacted to encourage consumers and businesses to become less dependent on gasoline; research and implementation of renewable energy technology must be pursued as a national priority, not as a footnote to perennially-stalled and misguided attempts to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

With this in mind, we propose a gradual increase to the federal gasoline excise tax. Currently at a rate of 18.4 cents per gallon, the excise tax pays for highway maintenance and public transportation. By increasing the tax, the federal government can spur both privately and publicly-funded research into renewable energy technology and provide incentives for businesses and citizens to limit consumption.

The revenue from a climbing tax could be used to jump-start truly innovative research into hybrid motors, solar power, and other alternatives to a hydrocarbon-based energy supply that has muddied U.S. economic, environmental, and foreign policies. Funding for public transportation could be increased, and fares on buses, subways, and trains reduced. Furthermore, higher gasoline prices would provide a strong inducement for private firms to devise their own gasoline alternatives independent of federal funding.

In addition to the purely economic impact of such a tax, the government would be sending a strong message to its citizens that gasoline frugality is a national imperative. Walking, biking, and use public transportation would become priorities, instead of conveniences. America would no longer be beholden to unstable or unfriendly, but oil-rich nations. We’ll even breathe better.

While a increased gas tax would not be popular with many voters or business lobbies, tepid measures to artificially and temporarily soften the blow of high gasoline prices, such as the Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters or the Democratic plan for a 60-day suspension of the federal gas tax, are short-sighted quick fixes. It is no wonder that incensed constituents across the political spectrum have called their congressmen to protest their pandering antics—they realize that the gasoline problem will extend far longer than the few months until midterm elections. Instead of racing to find a superficial solution that will give a favorable spike in the polls, congressmen should act courageously and do what’s best for the nation.

Of course, any real sacrifice means short-term inconvenience, if not outright pain. For the hardest hit and essential sectors of the economy, the government can find ways to create an appropriate gas tax credit structure that will also avoid creating a regressive tax. But, ultimately, even the short-term increase in gasoline prices that would result from a new excise tax is but a pittance of the price that America would pay years down the road when the price of a gallon has reached double digits, national consumption has not decreased, and no good gasoline alternative is available.