We hear this a lot, but it’s rather simplistic, in much the same way as non-Americans who somehow have come to believe we all voted for George Bush. Most of us in this country are living with the results of decisions that were made fifty and sixty years ago. Some were major government sponsored initiatives, like the Interstate system. Others reflected cultural trends such as the shift to the suburbs. I don’t think these are the best things we as a people could have done by a long shot, but today we’re stuck with the organization and infrastructure of life that we have. In recent decades the problems have been compounded, in my opinion, by the galloping population growth which, among other things, makes close-in housing in major cities prohibitively expensive, which in turn drives the move to ever further suburbs and ever greater fuel consumption. (To me, this made the blind celebrating of passing the population milestone of 300 million, a few years ago, ridiculous) While there are all sorts of efficiencies we can achieve to make the whole operation more Earth-friendly, we’ll never come down to the fuel consumption rates of France or Germany.
Sadly true, even if at least a part of every steering-wheel-bound commuter wishes s/he’d been born in a place like Berlin, or Paris, or one of the exceptional American cities instead of having to attend to the traffic for an hour or more each day.
Here’s a perfect example of the government screwing up energy policy. Gasoline prices rise, and people respond by driving less and using more mass transit. This causes a drop in taxes collected for highways, so Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and President Bush are proposing we take money away from the mass transit funds to subsidize highway spending.
The market won’t work if you don’t let it. If the taxes collected on fuel won’t support the roads, you should raise the taxes on a gallon of fuel. The gas tax holiday was the stupidest idea I’d heard in a long time. If the increased cost of fuel makes people drive less, that is the market working, and increased use of mass transit helps hold fuel prices in check.
Here’s a link to an article about hidden subsidies for cars and trucks. Keeping the cost of driving artificially low has put us in this mess. Doing more of it will not get us out.
What are you talking about? The US Government subsidizes water for god’s sake. Are you aware of how tariffs work? Government regulations on stock markets?
Seriously, were you drunk when you wrote this?
I think that the US gov’t, on the contrary, owes it to future citizens to raise prices even more as a way to “use market forces” to force belt-tightening & alternative energy investment across the nation, so that in 50-100 years we have a sustainable energy policy.
The US governments (including state and local) are already heavily involved in the transportation and energy markets and create numerous distortions which promote in favor of gasoline usage, individual transport and less-dense living environments. So, your question doesn’t make a lot of sense, since the government is already invovled in the issue.
A better question is: how should government restructure its policies to deal with the current situation?
We subsidize oil production and delivery in umpteen different ways. Now, oil has other uses than gasoline, but given how much oil is converted to gasoline and how much money our government spends to ensure a steady supply of oil, I think it’s fair to say we subsidize gasoline.
I didn’t say it would lower gas prices. Read what I said and well discuss it. And I don’t have Warren Buffet’s portfolio in front of me so you’ll have to provide me with his energy investment strategy or withdraw your point.