Time For A Gas Tax
I've been saying this for months. Henry Blodget wants a price target of $4 and not to start it until 2011. I would set a nearer-term target of $3 and start drifting the price up to that target immediately, then start raising the target to $4 and beyond. Gas below $2/gallon is just plain stupid. Let's get it back up to at least $2.50 by the summer before people start thinking of anything over $2 as being high.
The target should work as a price-band, using tax cuts and even short-term subsidies to smooth out price-swings. Economic actors can't be expected to act rationally and efficiently when the price of oil can be anywhere between $25 and $250/barrel.
Measures, up to and including public flogging, would have to be taken to ensure oil companies didn't simply push their profit-margin up to reach the target price.
The money raised by this tax could be used for things like bailing out the automakers while turning them more into mass-transit makers, upgrading rail roadbed and building more, including urban light rail, and so forth. This could fit nicely into Obama's infrastructure plan while actually adding a funding source other than the Chinese and other creditor-nations.
I've been saying this for months. Henry Blodget wants a price target of $4 and not to start it until 2011. I would set a nearer-term target of $3 and start drifting the price up to that target immediately, then start raising the target to $4 and beyond. Gas below $2/gallon is just plain stupid. Let's get it back up to at least $2.50 by the summer before people start thinking of anything over $2 as being high.
The target should work as a price-band, using tax cuts and even short-term subsidies to smooth out price-swings. Economic actors can't be expected to act rationally and efficiently when the price of oil can be anywhere between $25 and $250/barrel.
Measures, up to and including public flogging, would have to be taken to ensure oil companies didn't simply push their profit-margin up to reach the target price.
The money raised by this tax could be used for things like bailing out the automakers while turning them more into mass-transit makers, upgrading rail roadbed and building more, including urban light rail, and so forth. This could fit nicely into Obama's infrastructure plan while actually adding a funding source other than the Chinese and other creditor-nations.
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