Dubya wants to repeal the most recent increase in the federal gasoline tax, a 4.3¢ hike passed during Clinton’s first term.
My main reaction is, why bother? Fifteen months ago, I was paying 92.9¢ per gallon; now it’s 157.9¢/gal, an increase of 65¢. What’s the point of reducing that amount by a measly 4.3¢? WTF difference is that supposed to make - especially when that minuscule cut will just get swallowed up by the further increases that are supposed to be on the way.
I have a second reaction as well, that originates in the way I look at taxation, to wit: as long as we expect certain services out of government, we’ve got to pay for them, which means we get taxed. The most sensible way to distribute the tax burden, IMO, is to do so in a way that minimizes the difficulty and inconvenience to the taxpayers affected, and is least harmful and disruptive to the economy as a whole, over time.
By this measure, a gasoline or petroleum tax stacks up as a pretty good tax, relative to other taxes. The price of petroleum and its products can be extremely volatile; the main factor in that volatility is how vulnerable the oil-consuming countries are to a cut in supply. The higher our demand, the more vulnerable we are.
Supply cuts (we’re looking at one now) can drive prices up rapidly, potentially disrupting the economy. In a way, the disruption itself is the problem; our economy can adjust to a fairly wide range of oil prices, but when the price goes up suddenly, that can cause problems for a lot of businesses, which in turn causes problems for the rest of us. (On top of the irritation of paying more at the pump.)
The businesses lay people off, those people buy less stuff, which causes other businesses to suffer and lay people off, it gets harder to find new jobs since there are fewer of them, and so forth.
If there’s enough of a tax on petroleum to substantially encourage conservation and discourage demand, then we’re less vulnerable to a decision by OPEC to cut back production, because we’re using less oil, so we’re dependent on them for a much smaller fraction of our oil. So instead of a price roller-coaster where sometimes prices are low and the world is good, and sometimes prices go way up, disrupting our economy (and effectively amounting to OPEC getting to tax us), we tax ourselves, minimizing such disruptions, and the money goes to Uncle Sam, not the Emir of Kuwait or the House of Saud.
I realize a lot of people here don’t like to see money going to Uncle Sam, and that’s their right. But it seems to me that that’s preferable to its going to another government. And once it’s in Uncle Sam’s pocket, we get to argue about what to do with the money - which we don’t if it’s in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, etc. We can use the added boodle: (a) to cut other taxes (my favorite is the SS/Medicare payroll tax); (b) pay down the debt; (c) shore up Social Security and Medicare; (d) put some money into other government programs that have been pinched in recent years; or (e) various combinations of the above.
But frankly, I’d rather even see a gas tax finance a tax cut for the wealthy than to see a price hike that sends the same money to the sheiks, especially if it helps keep our economy out of the boom-and-bust syndrome. After all, despite how far left I am, I’d rather subsidize our rich people than their rich people. 
Comments?
Enough of voting for the lesser of evils - vote Cthulhu 2000!