Gas Tax

There's been a lot of talk about a gas tax, what with the Lieberman-Warner bill being debated on the Senate floor. I read an enlightening op-ed in the Journal a few weeks ago that contextualized the discussion of such a tax in such a way that helped form my own opinion into a somewhat more concrete form. Summarizing, the article shed light on the progressive view, at least currently progressive, that ultimately, in the struggle to stop global warming, society should strive to reduce できれば the consumption of gas by the masses; a gas tax does exactly this. There are other effects, however, on businesses and such that raise prices of goods and services, which happens to be the core argument against such a tax. The appropriate approach to "solving" global warming through this conduit is reducing the public's reliance on gasoline by improving mass transit. Cap and trade seems to be a decent solution for the other sector, but politics has of course infiltrated this system by inappropriately compensating large corporations and others with heavy influence in Washington. This is completely unacceptable and defeats the purpose entirely. Someone needs to step into the scene with the reputation, strength, and integrity to slap the lobbyists on the wrist, wrest the opium pipe away from the corrupt, and return the system to something even close to resembling a functioning and accountable government.