More gas

This afternoon, while reading up on the news of my 'adopted state,' I discovered that waffling on the gas tax is a bipartisan affair in Vermont. Delightful.

I had to chuckle at this sentence in the article:

"There they struck a deal to pay for road and bridge repairs and match a windfall of federal transportation dollars without raising fuel taxes. Instead they agreed to bank on new estimates about higher-than-projected revenues from other taxes, such as income and sales."

Can you imagine anything like that happening in someone's home? "Hey, honey, we're going to be $60 short in our food budget this month. Do you suppose you could take that extra shift like we talked about, and I could work late this week?" "Dear, come on, let's just agree that I'll get that other job that pays more, the one I was thinking about maybe applying for."

On the other end of the sanity spectrum, sensible conservatives (an endangered species, to be sure) Charles Krauthammer and Andrew Sullivan both get it: supply and demand are causing price hikes in crude oil and gasoline.

To their credit, both men go further and embrace what we Optimates have already suggested, namely an increase in state and federal gas taxes. Krauthammer in particular has some interesting statistics about our ten-year dalliance with conservation in the 1970s and early 1980s, and the result of efficiencies on the GDP.

I think we should continue to bang the drum for increased fuel taxes, conservation credits, and more funding for public transit. Partisans of all stripes need to come to their senses (I know, I know...) and realize this is not so much a tax as an economic investment.

For example, think of the effect energy costs have had on major American industries over the past few years. In data seen here, we learn that 'per seat mile' labor costs used to be three times as high as 'per seat mile' fuel costs for our airline industry. Fuel has now caught up and threatens to surpass labor. What happens to the industry if we stay the present course?

Let me localize it to Littleton, New Hampshire. Littleton was able to attract and keep industrial and manufacturing jobs - the reverse of what's been happening elsewhere - in no small part because the town has a hydroelectric dam and therefore cheap electricity.

Certainly American workers cannot compete with the low wages that are commonplace in developing nations. But we can compete in the use of modern, efficient, and renewable energy, and drive down our overall cost. Indeed, that's been the source of America's traditionally high wages: efficiency and incredible productivity growth have kept us competitive. So the things we've been proposing won't hurt the economy in the long run - they would help it!

It continues to boggle the mind that this case isn't being made by any politician of any stripe. Again, it falls to the people to raise these issues and get things moving. I leave it to the commenters and your collective wisdom to figure out a way we can get these initiatives on the radar screen.