Personally, I object to a tax policy that gives a multi-thousand dollar check to the buyer of a 25mpg hybrid truck but tells the buyer of a 40mpg auto to take a hike.

On a related note, I think that this would be an excellent time to raise the gasoline tax. Only high prices will reduce our trade deficit for foreign oil. God only knows, a government that is going to run a 1 million million dollar (trillion is meaningless to most people) deficit (some estimates) could use the money. If we added $0.50/gallon now gas would still be relatively, in recent history, cheap. Add another $0.50/gal in a year or so, and we've raised a few bucks with a tax that people can opt out of.

 

Yup. I'd tax them higher at purchase and excise. I'd earmark the revenue for tax breaks for purchasers of higher mileage vehicles. Create an incentive for buyers and manufacturers to produce and buy fuel efficient cars.

 

The only concern I have about raising gasoline taxes is that the money raised should be used for infrastructure improvements, alternative fuels, mileage improvement, battery improvements and other things related to transportation.

Too much of the time, government spends tax money on pet projects or pork. If they are going to increase taxes on transportation fuels, it should go back into those efforts which move us further along towards making us more energy independent, and improving the general state of the infrastructure.

 

Keep conserving, ...and don't buy an SUV (except my wife)

Assuming that the above sentence is in English, it parses as:


Don't buy an SUV but buy my wife.