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A Tax on Gasoline Can Improve Retirement Living By Stephen J. Butler

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The root of our country's energy policy is found in Kenneth Graham's 1913 book, "The Wind in the Willows." The character, "Toad," steals a "motorcar" and, "?as if in a dream, all sense of right and wrong, all fear of obvious consequences, seemed temporarily suspended. He increased his pace, and as the car devoured the street and leapt forth on the high road through the open country, he was only conscious that he was Toad once more, Toad at his best and highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone trail, before whom all must give way or be smitten into nothingness and everlasting night. ?he sped he knew not whither, fulfilling his instincts, living his hour, reckless of what might come to him."

In other words, Toad was just as self-indulgent, short-sighted and obsessed with automobiles in 1913 as we are today. Hybrid gas/electric cars are now available, practical, and use almost one-third less fuel than the average car on showroom floors. Unfortunately, they are not selling well. Americans won't pay the extra $3,000 that hybridization adds to the cost of a new car.

The key to making fuel-efficient cars more attractive is to make the gas they require more expensive. We can do this by taxing it heavily. No other alternative works. For Europeans, gas costs $3.00-$4.00 per gallon, and most of the difference between their prices and ours is attributable to taxes. People still drive SUV's and gas guzzlers over there, but at least those that do so make the sacrifice. The rest of the population isn't forced to subsidize the indulgence with hidden costs buried in their tax systems.

Our average fuel mileage is the same today as it was in 1980. Manufacturers have mandates to increase the average miles per gallon across their product lines, but what good does that do when we refuse to buy the cars that save gas? The Hummer, at 12 miles per gallon, is the nation's new SUV most in demand at the moment. In the tradeoff between power and economy, power has been winning with consumers since the end of the gas lines in 1974.

Anyone who looks at the price on the gas pump and thinks we actually have inexpensive fuel is misinformed. It is subsidized heavily and paid for by all of us who pay income taxes. For openers, we fight wars to protect our petroleum interests, and we spend money to support and protect governments that make their petroleum available to us. Further subsidies to the oil industry at all layers of government simply cost us money as citizens before our cars make it beyond the end of our driveways. One study shows that a gallon of gas actually costs $15.75.

The idea of dramatically increasing taxes on fuel is political poison. All industries involving petroleum or petroleum-based products like things just the way they are?with true costs hidden. Politicians are not inclined to paddle upstream against those waves of campaign contributions from special interests?unless the electorate sends an overpowering mandate reflecting just common sense.

A tax is not that terrible. It allows people who love their SUV's and gas guzzlers to keep them. It sure beats "jawboning" the auto industry to go through the motions of designing cars that nobody will buy and convincing ourselves that we have "done something."

A substantial fuel tax also allows us to build up a sinking fund to fight what might someday be a war that is clearly over oil and only oil. These wars can be expensive. The government's estimate is $200 billion for the upcoming Gulf War. Short of war, we spend fortunes courting regimes that hate us. What sent me over the edge recently was reading in a boating magazine about a potentate whose private 450-foot yacht was just nearing completion in an Italian boatyard at a cost of $150 million. In the light of what is happening in the world today, how can anyone be so arrogant--- and on largely our nickel?

I don't have much faith in the vaunted fuel-cell technology as a practical answer to the extent that hybrid cars (or just economy cars and public transportation) offer us right now. The fuel cell hope is like the "chaff" that fighter planes use to confuse surface-to-air missiles. Fuel cell technology will require an entirely new infrastructure of "fuel cell stations" and years of trial and error. By comparison, hybrid cars are here today, and a substantial gas tax would send them flying out of showrooms. It would even bring out those "Gyro Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2">

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