teapartyeconomist.com / by Gary North / January 13, 2015
The three best nations on earth for low gasoline taxes are Mexico, the United States, and Canada, in that order. This drives liberals crazy.
They want higher taxes. They aren’t getting them here. So, the wailing goes on. It’s not fair! There should be higher gasoline taxes!
Now that oil has fallen in price by 50%, and gasoline prices are falling, the “tax, tax, tax” forces are out there, trying desperately to convince Americans that what they need — and ought to want — is a tax hike.
So far, they are having zero success.
They are crushed. For a cry of despair, read this.
Needless to say, a proposal to raise the gas tax this high would be laughed out of the room (at best). The short-term pain would be on the order of a housing collapse or a zombie invasion. Michael Specter of the New Yorker may have put it best when he likened cheap gas to “an industrial form of crack”: impossible to quit, no matter the damage it causes.
But in the long-run Americans would see some very real benefits from a price of gas that most closely reflected the true cost of driving. Fewer loved ones killed in car crashes. Healthier pregnancies and babies. More time spent with family and friends. Better access to jobs, and perhaps as productivity increased, higher wages. More livable developments and, with them, slimmer waistlines. Cleaner and quieter air. The sorts of things we can’t fit in our purses or wallets, but which cost us dearly just the same.
The liberal utopia is just around the corner, but instead of grabbing it — with higher taxes — Americans prefer lower gasoline prices.
Liberals find this hard to understand. They want high taxes, larger state budgets, more bureaucrats on the federal government’s payroll, and less freedom. Why don’t American voters want these things?
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