The other day I got an email from a good friend of mine. He’s a sharp guy, a bit on the libertarian side and definitely not a fan of taxes and certainly not as much of a whiney tax and spend liberal as I am. Here’s what he had to say.

So... I've been doing some research...
Ugh... I hate to say it, but rather than a tax holiday on gas, I think the feds should increase the tax on oil, gasoline, natural gas, etc. to reduce consumption and fund research into other technologies.
Demand for oil/energy isn't going to decrease or flatten out unless China and India decide they want to start going backwards economically and socially.
Might as well push the issue with incentives to start changing now than dealing with a bigger mess later.
I imagine most people would puke at such an idea, but it seems like the only logical thing to do to me. Which means it's not gonna happen...

Back in 1980 John Anderson campaigned on raising the gas tax by 50-cents a gallon, that's $1.41 in 2007 money.
Obviously that was very unpopular, you should have heard the earful I got when I called a guy with a trucking company asking if we could count on his support for Anderson in the election. Actually you shouldn't have heard it. You were only four at the time and I'm not sure you're old enough to hear that kind of language yet.
When I called farmers, those guys who ride around on huge gasoline consuming tractors, they didn't think much of Mr. Anderson's proposal either.
Gas prices, in constant dollars, were the highest they'd ever been at that time and it's only in the last few weeks, say early April, that we've surpassed them.

In between we had the Reagan feel good years-with the occasional odd terrorist attack; the first Gulf War; Clinton's feel good years with the occasional odd terrorist attack-one time home grown; and then the Bush-Cheney-Make-Halliburton-Feel-Good-Years with outlook changing terrorist attacks.
So for almost 30 years (35 if you want to count back as far as the Arab Oil Embargo days of 1973) we've felt good about our access to oil, bitched about the increase in the price of it from time to time, all the while growing more and more dependent on imports to slake our thirst for it.
About once a year someone circulates a well intended but idiotically naive email suggesting that if we all stop buying gas from Exxon or stop buying gas on Tuesdays the price of gas will plummet and we'll have the oil exporters on their knees in front of us begging us to take crude oil off their hands at any price.

So yeah, we should increase the tax on petroleum and use the funds raised to develop alternative energy sources and other ways of clustering people and moving us from point A to point B.
And as we both know there is less than no chance that it will happen.
There's plenty of evidence that increased taxes on cigarettes have contributed to a decrease in consumption so we know the concept works but the office seeker/office holder who tries to suggest that we do the same thing with gasoline has as much chance of getting elected as John Anderson did...that would of course be none. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Uh-uh.
You know what you call a politician who gets too far ahead of public opinion? Unemployed.

Look how long it took to get some people to admit that there COULD be global warming.
And some people still don't.
Of course there are some people who still don't believe that men have walked on the moon.

Your idea is reasonable, intelligent and makes a great deal of sense as a step toward a long term solution.
You and I will vote for someone who actually proposes it but we'll never see anyone who suggests that take office.

My friend says he’ll have some responses in a few days.
I’m looking forward to seeing them.