Good Column By Friedman

Finally, a column by Tom Friedman that I can agree with. In today's NY Times, Op-Ed Columnist: Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda argues for a dollar per gallon gasoline tax. This happens to be an idea I suggested many years ago, for the same reasons: we would send less money to our adversaries overseas, we would have a better energy policy, and a great source of government revenue.

Of course, I would like to see some of the revenue used for nuclear fusion R&D and building more nuclear fission power plants. (I would also like to see the United States exit the World Trade Organization and put tariffs on goods and services of nations which do not trade fairly with us, such as China, but that is a different - though related - issue.)

The gasoline tax would be similar to a tariff, and that is good, because American tariffs add to our federal treasury, as opposed to the treasuries of the countries we import from. The latter still make a lot of money off the American consumer, but tariffs would also favor American producers of goods and services.

A quote from Friedman's column:

“Think about it,” says Phil Verleger, an energy economist. “We could have replaced the current payroll tax with a gasoline tax. Middle-class consumers would have seen increased take-home pay of between six and nine percent, even though they would have had to pay more at the pump.

End quote.

That is another idea I favor. I have often called for eliminating the payroll tax and making the federal income tax more progressive. The payroll tax is the opposite of progressive: it is regressive; it hurts the middle and lower classes more than the upper class. This would not be "class warfare"; class warfare is what we have now, with the upper class waging war on the rest of America.

I like to call a spade a spade. So today, I applaud Tom Friedman's column.